Pre-Friday Linkblog, not-that-kind-of-doctor edition

The always-fascinating Going Medieval has an enlightening article today on the history of the use of “Doctor” as a honorific: Doctor does actually mean someone with a PhD, sorry.

The short, short version is that “Doctor” started off as a way to mean someone who had done all the school to acquire a PhD, and then slowly spread to other professionals, like Physicians. As Dr. Janega says towards the end:

The point of all this is that it is a historical fact that the term “doctor” is supposed to refer to people who have a PhD and teach, and we let medical practitioners start using it cuz we are not weirdo gate keepers.

That’s the most interesting thing for me is that historically, “doctor” really signified someone qualified to teach. The whole thing is worth reading, especially the origins of the other formal terms for various medical professionals, and they way all those terms got flattened out into just “doctor.”

Which brings me to one of my favorite subjects, that’s right, Doctor Who.

The old show, the 1963–1989 one, made it very clear that the main character was not a medical doctor, but the “other kind.” It’s never stated this bluntly, but the implication that means he’s a “real doctor”. The new show (2005–present), on the other hand, had much more leaned into the later definition; the healer, the fixer-of-things.

This is not a complaint, to be sure, but I think it’s funny that the was the use of the term has evolved over the course of the show has mirrored the way the term has evolved in real life.