What's this Madame President nonsense?

[MajGenl.Meade]

a) we are not French. So lose the "e" and make it Madam President

b) Madam is the female equivalent of "Sir"

c) we don't call Obama "Sir President"

d) we call Obama "Mr. President"

e) therefore, when HRC is elected <spit>, she should obviously be referred to as "Mrs. President"

[Big RR]

Ah, bur the term Mrs has only been used traditionally in conjunction with a name or a woman's husband, while Mr has been used with job titles. thus we have Mr Chairman, Mr Speaker, Mr President, etc. Mrs. has not been used that that way and Madam has been substituted when that degree of formality is needed--(Madam Chair, Madam Prime Minister, Madam Secretary). Mrs President might sound more like the First lady than the president. unless you want Ms President (which doesn't sound all that official or respectful). I guess we could use Mistress President, but then we don't use Master President (at least since 1863).

[Big RR]

duplicate post

[Lord Jim]

Gee, people bitch at me for quoting myself, (sometimes it's unavoidable, as I am frequently the most factually accurate and articulately presented source on numerous topics) but I don't believe I've ever done it in two consecutive posts before...

[Crackpot]

And "madam" is a little too closely associated with brothels.

[Big RR]

Gee, people bitch at me for quoting myself, (sometimes it's unavoidable, as I am frequently the most factually accurate and articulately presented source on numerous topics) but I don't believe I've ever done it in two consecutive posts before...

fixed it. Thanks.

[MajGenl.Meade]

If I can't have Mrs President or Ms. President, then maybe "Madam President" is understandable, given the use of Madam Secretary and so on.

But please - let's lose the 'e'. Or pronounce it in the French manner and not as if sounded like 'madam'.

[Guinevere]

Is this comment directed at me Meade? And if so, is there some reason you didn't address it to me directly? Do you really prefer to be so passive aggressive?


I'll refer to her as I wish, but thanks for the input.

#MadamePresident

#MadamePresident

#MadamePresident

[rubato]

"Madame President" conveys appropriate respect for the person and the office.

"Mrs. President" does not because "Mrs." denotes identity and status derived from the husband and this is disrespectful to the country of which she is the head of state.


yrs,
rubato

[MajGenl.Meade]

Is this comment directed at me Meade? And if so, is there some reason you didn't address it to me directly? Do you really prefer to be so passive aggressive?

I'll refer to her as I wish, but thanks for the input.

Passive aggressive, my arse. I saw your sig line and decided to take a look to see what it was about. I don't do twats so hash tags are no use to me finding things.

Found this from yesterday: (EDIT to clarify: this is what I found published yesterday)

The Making Of A Madame President: The Composite

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelliekara ... 879a1b73d3

It's a discussion or it isn't. Whatever. It isn't all about you, actually.

[RayThom]

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Madame.
Madame who?
Ma damn foot's caught in the door!

[BoSoxGal]

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Madame.
Madame who?
Ma damn foot's caught in my mouth! - Donald J. Trump

[Guinevere]

Is this comment directed at me Meade? And if so, is there some reason you didn't address it to me directly? Do you really prefer to be so passive aggressive?

I'll refer to her as I wish, but thanks for the input.

Passive aggressive, my arse. I saw your sig line and decided to take a look to see what it was about. I don't do twats so hash tags are no use to me finding things.

Found this from yesterday:

The Making Of A Madame President: The Composite

http://www.forbes.com/sites/shelliekara ... 879a1b73d3

It's a discussion or it isn't. Whatever. It isn't all about you, actually.

Whatever you say, dear.

[Bicycle Bill]

Get used to it, Meade.  You're going to be hearing "Madam President" (or "Madame President"; it's pronounced the same anyway) on the newscasts for the next four years, minimum.

I do agree with him on one thing, though.  In written form, the word "Madam" (without the 'e') is generally considered the common usage here in the good ol' US of A.

-"BB"-

[Burning Petard]

Does history matter? I have it on no authority at all that "Mr. President" was on instructions from G Washington to decline 'real' honorifics reflective of the British class system.

Has the language changed since 1784? I suggest the use of 'Mr. President' has become an honorific, denoting other than commoner, anti-nobility status. If we wish to de-gender-fy the title of the head of the USofA executive branch, drop the Mr. in front. Just 'President Obama'
We have achieved a non-gender fireman (policewoman seems to be hanging on, perhaps because cop is regarded as a role with more power than fire fighter) We have had no trouble calling military females with flag rank General or Admiral. Why retain the Mister for the president?

Anybody ever addressed their supervisor on the job as Mr. Boss?

snailgate

[RayThom]

... Anybody ever addressed their supervisor on the job as Mr. Boss?
snailgate

Mr. Boss? That sounds like "plantation speak" to me. It's not used much anymore but many inner-city police officers would be very happy hearing it from the citizens they are hired to "protect and serve." A box of ammo and body-cams that work when that ammo is in use can tax department resources. Old time civility is what's called for.

Can't we all just get along?

[Big RR]

BP--I think it's because traditionally the office is viewed as being greater than the person occupying it--so we use Mr. President to show that the office, not the person, is being addressed. Same is true of cabinet secretaries, supreme court justices (especially the chief justice) and (to a lesser extent) members of the legislators. I think it is used more in speaking than in writing, just as judges are often addressed as your honor or judge in speaking in courtrooms, but Judge Smith in written communications. It's probably a throwback to the times when monarchs and other nobility were addressed by their office using some sort of honorific for the same reason.

My understanding is that Washington consented to the use of Mr. president in response to some federalists (Adams and Hamilton come to mind) who wanted another more exalted honorific like "Your Excellency". Washington didn't really want any, but agreed to the least lofty sounding one

[rubato]

The rejection of titles esp hereditary titles or honorifics bestowed by a monarch arises in two veins of American history. One is the Quakers (William Penn &c) who believed that no term of address other than "thee" or "thou" should be used because we are all equal before god.

http://www.bartleby.com/34/2/1.html

“Confess,” said he, “that it was very difficult for thee to refrain from laughter, when I answered all thy civilities without uncovering my head, and at the same time said ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ to thee. However, thou appearest to me too well read not to know that in Christ’s time no nation was so ridiculous as to put the plural number for the singular. Augustus Cæsar himself was spoken to in such phrases as these: ‘I love thee,’ ‘I beseech thee,’ ‘I thank thee;’ but he did not allow any person to call him ‘Domine,’ sir. It was not till many ages after that men would have the word ‘you,’ as though they were double, instead of ‘thou’ employed in speaking to them; and usurped the flattering titles of lordship, of eminence, and of holiness, which mere worms bestow on other worms by assuring them that they are with a most profound respect, and an infamous falsehood, their most obedient humble servants. It is to secure ourselves more strongly from such a shameless traffic of lies and flattery, that we ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ a king with the same freedom as we do a beggar, and salute no person; we owing nothing to mankind but charity, and to the laws respect and obedience.

A Quaker in conversation with Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire. (Letters on the English.)

And the other is the always difficult Thomas Paine:

Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

It is, properly, from the elevated mind of France that the folly of titles has fallen. It has outgrown the baby clothes of Count and Duke, and breeched itself in manhood. France has not levelled, it has exalted. It has put down the dwarf, to set up the man. The punyism of a senseless word like Duke, Count or Earl has ceased to please. Even those who possessed them have disowned the gibberish, and as they outgrew the rickets, have despised the rattle. The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society, contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word, and surveys at a distance the envied life of man.

Is it, then, any wonder that titles should fall in France? Is it not a greater wonder that they should be kept up anywhere? What are they? What is their worth, and "what is their amount?" When we think or speak of a Judge or a General, we associate with it the ideas of office and character; we think of gravity in one and bravery in the other; but when we use the word merely as a title, no ideas associate with it. Through all the vocabulary of Adam there is not such an animal as a Duke or a Count; neither can we connect any certain ideas with the words. Whether they mean strength or weakness, wisdom or folly, a child or a man, or the rider or the horse, is all equivocal. What respect then can be paid to that which describes nothing, and which means nothing? Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical nondescript.

But this is not all. If a whole country is disposed to hold them in contempt, all their value is gone, and none will own them. It is common opinion only that makes them anything, or nothing, or worse than nothing. There is no occasion to take titles away, for they take themselves away when society concurs to ridicule them. This species of imaginary consequence has visibly declined in every part of Europe, and it hastens to its exit as the world of reason continues to rise. There was a time when the lowest class of what are called nobility was more thought of than the highest is now, and when a man in armour riding throughout Christendom in quest of adventures was more stared at than a modern Duke. The world has seen this folly fall, and it has fallen by being laughed at, and the farce of titles will follow its fate. The patriots of France have discovered in good time that rank and dignity in society must take a new ground. The old one has fallen through. It must now take the substantial ground of character, instead of the chimerical ground of titles; and they have brought their titles to the altar, and made of them a burnt-offering to Reason.

If no mischief had annexed itself to the folly of titles they would not have been worth a serious and formal destruction, such as the National Assembly have decreed them; and this makes it necessary to enquire farther into the nature and character of aristocracy.

That, then, which is called aristocracy in some countries and nobility in others arose out of the governments founded upon conquest. It was originally a military order for the purpose of supporting military government (for such were all governments founded in conquest); and to keep up a succession of this order for the purpose for which it was established, all the younger branches of those families were disinherited and the law of primogenitureship set up.

The nature and character of aristocracy shows itself to us in this law. It is the law against every other law of nature, and Nature herself calls for its destruction. Establish family justice, and aristocracy falls. By the aristocratical law of primogenitureship, in a family of six children five are exposed. Aristocracy has never more than one child. The rest are begotten to be devoured. They are thrown to the cannibal for prey, and the natural parent prepares the unnatural repast. ... "

Although this is from "the Rights of Man and the Citizen" written more for the French Revolution than American audiences it does advance the idea that democracy requires the abolition of hereditary privilege and status.

But taken all together it supports the idea that "Madame" is the appropriate honorific for a truly American president who is a woman. It is the simple title of respect for any woman.


yrs,
rubato

[Bicycle Bill]

BP--I think it's because traditionally the office is viewed as being greater than the person occupying it--so we use Mr. President to show that the office, not the person, is being addressed. Same is true of cabinet secretaries, supreme court justices (especially the chief justice) and (to a lesser extent) members of the legislators.

I think Big RR is on the right track.  It is a way of showing respect, if not for the holder, then for the office which that person occupies.
It's the same reason we read of times when, during the heat of Congressional debate, the speaker refers to "my distinguished colleague from ________" when we all know that what he really wants to say is something more along the lines of "that no-good, back-shootin', double-dealin', lyin' sidewinder".

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

Sorry BB. Madam and Madame are not pronounced the same way - at least not by pendants but only by loosers.

Ironically, madame is French for Mrs. So Madame President would be "Mrs. President" after all. Except apparently we're not supposed to use Madame for English or American women (?). Who knew?

Madame, noun, plural mesdames
[mey-dam, -dahm; French mey-dam]
1.a French title of respect equivalent to “Mrs.”, used alone or prefixed to a woman's married name or title: Madame Curie.
2.(in English) a title of respect used in speaking to or of an older woman, especially one of distinction, who is not of American or British origin.

No it has to be Madam President - the English/American formulation derived from madame - as in #1 below

madam [mad-uh m]

1. (often initial capital letter) a polite term of address to a woman, originally used only to a woman of rank or authority:
Madam President; May I help you, madam?
2.the woman in charge of a household: Is the madam at home?
3.the woman in charge of a house of prostitution.

If Trump is elected we could probably use #3 as the basis to call him Madam President