So, I was talking with a friend a while back and I thought it would be funny to have my cards etc have Lord on them (we were talking about Lord Miles Routledge, the memelord who went to Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul)
So, I went on the actual legal search of lordships etc
My understanding is essentially: you can identify as whatever you want, no one has to respect a title to begin with so it doesn’t matter
On my journey, I thought I’d document it for purely the reasons of “because otherwise it would feel like a serious attempt and I couldn’t brush it off as a meme”
So I messaged RBS to ask if they could change my title so I’m Lord X Y on my account and I am currently waiting on their reply
They told me that if I need to present ID it would need to match my passport/drivers licence, but I think that should be okay as titles aren’t included on either
Titles are a funny thing. I find they’re a bit at odds with modern day culture and identity issues.
What happens when a Lord or a Prince grows up to decide they’re gender fluid, or non-binary?
I’ve never been one for labels or titles, and if it were up to me, I’d be able to remove my title completely and not have one. They’re pointless aspects of modern life, and to my knowledge serve little purpose outside of separating class or skill. A bragging right.
I have a masters in cybersecurity, another in mathematics, and I’m currently working towards my third Open masters. I believe these accolades afford me the right to use master as my title, but I don’t. I just don’t see the point, and it’s not worth the extra hassle.
There’s nothing terribly special here ; I love to keep learning and study a new module or two with the Open University each year as a means to broaden my knowledge, or refine and update the knowledge of my craft. Been doing this for over a decade and never plan to stop.
Why? Two reasons. I love it. And the other is best explained through an example:
My friend works at a certain fintech here in the U.K. (I won’t name which) as a mid-level developer. They work under a very old school senior developer with stagnant, outdated knowledge, generally dismissive of new, and better technologies. It really holds development back and limits what they can achieve. That’s never going to be me.
Master is a title given to boys who are too young to be called Mr so I definitely wouldn’t use that! What you can do with a Masters’ degree is to use the relevant postnominal (MA, MSc, MPhil, etc)
And the thing is, who is actually going to bother questioning a Lordship Title? Mr/Mrs/Miss Miggins of Interstellar Airlines isn’t going to bother interrogating a supposed Lord, they’ll probably just go 'Yeah, whatever, off you go to Business Class
The one person I know who went all out with it was travelling in the US. He’d get a flight upgrade, but they’d also want to announce he was on the plane and that kind of BS. They do early boarding for veterans and military, so it seems that kind of norm extends to kowtowing to titles quite easily, plus the whole service ethos in the US (you are your customer’s slave).
Just really strange behaviour and it was a while ago, to be fair, so maybe airlines have cottoned on! I personally couldn’t stomach all that weird attention, but it doesn’t seem to be an issue for everyone
Me neither to fair and if you’re unlucky enough to be on a plane that gets hijacked, then of course you suddenly present yourself as a high profile hostage, until of course you start blubbing that you’re not actually a Lord at all but a bit of an attention seeker looking for freebies, then they’ll put a cap in your ass and they’ll be no passenger 57 to avenge your terrible demise
But how would an airline know if you just put it on your debit card? Unless you started using it everywhere; however I suspect this isn’t even a case of buying a silly souvenir title but just baselessly lying to your bank (which definitely can’t end badly)
I think that’d very much depend on whether said card-holder is playing down or playing up that “Lord” thing . Most peers of the realm would likely not draw any attention to it.
You can label yourself OwO Ndrw and it would be legal and valid, titles are a meme and have very little use in today’s society. Notice how Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss/Mx isn’t on your passport
You can probably apply for a coat of arms and have one granted with that extensive list of academia under your belt
As many may know, my forename is Byron. So for the memes, I will refer to myself as Lord Byron
Any ‘gain’ I could get from it (i.e. purporting a title to be legitimate and me as a nobleman) would be defrauding, which I have zero intent to do
I asked first, they don’t care. I fully mentioned I was assuming this title without any formal grounds to do so
As it happens, I know exactly where Lord Byron is buried and he is very much dead dead dead. Indeed I have to pay a visit up there in 3 weeks time, so I’ll make a point of visiting his grave just to make sure he’s not been dug up by the successor to his title
. Most peers of the realm would likely not draw any attention to it.