[Hellsgate] "My lord", "my lady"

[Tim McDaniel]

If I may intrude with a bit on titles?

As a Star Principal Herald noted years ago, "How do you refer to
people without awards of arms?  By their names."  "Milord" and
"milady" [1] were not titles in period.  So it's not really correct to
word it like "Dear, would you go get my mug back from m'lord
Billy-Bob?"  He's just "Billy-Bob".

"Milady" and "milord" [1] CAN properly be used in direct address if
you don't know their rank, or if you know there's no armigerous award.
So if you're talking TO Billy-Bob yourself, it's fine to ask "M'lord,
may I have my mug back?"

One of the ways in which the SCA is an improvement on period is that
we do NOT generally have the insanely proud insistence on recognition
of rank, title, and precedence that they had in period.  More: in my
experience, the higher-ranking the SCA person, the less they care.
So don't worry about messing up titles for people with rank.
For example, if you mladied our lovely Baroness Myfanwy, or mlorded
Master Tivar or Duke Kein, I would be surprised were they to even
mention it and utterly astonished were they to take offense.

In short: don't sweat titles, but I'd like to ask that people not use
"milady" and "milord" as if they were titles.

Daniel de Lincoln (Just plain Daniel is fine by me.  Lord Daniel is
OK: I have an AoA.)

[1] In all of its variants: "milord", "milady", "m'lady", "m'lord",
"my lady", "my lord", et cetera.

-- 
Tim McDaniel, tmcd at panix.com