Addressing or Introducing Married Doctors

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hey, this is Michael Winters from the Dallas-Fort Worth area. How are y’all?

Hi, Michael.

Doing well.

What’s up?

This question came to mind, and I thought you two would be the perfect people to ask.

When you have a married couple, and they both have the title doctor, what’s the correct way to introduce them to somebody? Is it doctor and doctor so-and-so, or what? How does that work? What’s the correct way?

Are they medical doctors?

Not necessarily.

Just if, you know, maybe one’s a PhD doctor, one’s a medical doctor, something like that.

That’s interesting.

Have you had occasion to run into this question in real life?

I haven’t, but I know a lot of friends that are doctors and some are medical and some are PhDs. And so I know if it’s one’s a doctor and one isn’t, then it would be doctor and Mrs. or doctor and Mr. so-and-so. But I didn’t know if there was a distinction between both doctors or, and now that you say it, if one’s more of an educational PhD doctor versus a medical.

If you know that they want to be called the doctor, that changes things.

Like I know a lot of people who have doctorates, non-medical doctorates, who don’t want to be called doctor. And if they’re called doctor, it’s only in very formal academic settings.

Yeah, I was going to say my dad had a couple of doctorates in theology and philosophy, and my mom had a doctorate in education, and so they refer to themselves as a paradox.

Wah, wah, wah.

Now you see where she gets it.

Oh, that’s funny.

Yeah, so I mean sometimes, I mean if they were introducing themselves, well, they wouldn’t really say that though. I can remember each of them talking on the phone to people, you know, introducing themselves, and it was pretty rare that either of them would say this is Dr. Barnette calling.

But let’s imagine there’s a new head of the university and a couple has been invited and they’re being introduced around. And let’s say it’s Dr. Juanita Smith and Dr. Juan Smith, right? The normal way to introduce them is to literally use their names, their full names in that way with the title. I’d like you to meet Dr. Juanita Smith. You’re kind of gesturing to her. And Dr. Juan Smith, and you’re gesturing to him, right? And that covers everything. It covers the fact that you now know that they have the same last name. You’ve got their first names. You’ve got their title. It’s kind of good and taken care of.

But it really depends on the context.

It does.

Most of the academics I know wouldn’t even bother with that because they just assume that everybody in their position has a doctorate.

Yeah, yeah.

And occasionally I will get people calling me Dr. Barrett. I’m not Dr. Barrett at all. I’m not Dr. Barnette.

No, I’ve had that happen at linguistic conferences. I’m like, no, don’t settle me with that.

So if they’re both medical doctors, though, you would just sort of say Dr. Jeanette Johnson and her husband, Dr. Frank Jones.

That would work.

That would be more appropriate.

That’s right.

Yeah.

And in doing that way, you give them their separate identities. My wife and I run into this because she kept her maiden name, as they say. And so anytime we are introduced, it’s her full name and then my full name because just Mr. and Mrs. Barrett just doesn’t cover the bases. And Dr. and Dr. Smith doesn’t cover the bases either.

Okay.

Well, that kind of answers my question. And now that I know, I’ll probably run into that situation just kind of seeing how my life works. So, yeah, I appreciate your time. And I listen to you every week. Love it.

Well, let us know if you run into that situation and how it turns out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s a big morass.

Everyone left angry.

No, I don’t know.

I sure will.

I appreciate it very much.

Thank you, Michael.

Take care.

All right.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye-bye.

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