An old Three Stooges shtick:

The stooges are standing there, about to do something they shouldn’t, and some stuffed shirt comes through and says, “Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” And Moe, Larry and Joe would all say, “Where? Who?” and turn this way and that looking for these exotic creatures. See, because they couldn’t possible be mistaken for “gentlemen.”

I think of that when I am called “Sir Paul,” which had never really happened to me before I got to the UAE.

I know it’s meant to be polite, but it makes me uncomfortable.

The only Sir Paul I know of is McCartney, of the Beatles, knighted by the queen. But even with him, it seems a bit silly to be introduced that way.

Actually, sir-anything sounds silly. Pompous. Even a bit oppressive. “What, am I now supposed to live up to some royal standard of decorum?”

Still, it happens here, and I don’t know what to do about it.

Most regularly, it comes from our taxi driver, Benjamin. He almost always calls me Sir Paul.

I know I’m about 30 years older than he is, and maybe that’s some of it, and he’s trying to be polite to his elders.

But I really don’t need any honorifics. I think it’s a North American thing. We don’t have royals. We’re not very formal. We call physicians “Doc” and get away with it. We call clerics “padre.” About as far as we can get with titles is “Mr. President,” but we also know a lot of people who would say, “Hello, Barack! What’s up?”

Other cultures would be aghast that we don’t use titles. Germans, for instance, are nuts about using all possible titles. “Herr Doktor Schmidt,” or whatever. The wackiest title I’ve come across was one invented by a despot for himself.

That would be President Mobutu, the former dictator of the Congo, or Zaire as he preferred to call it. Anyway, his “official” name was Sir to the nth degree:  Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu wa Za Banga, which apparently translates as “The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake.”

Titles give the impression that we accept that someone is on some other social level than we are. And while we don’t have a fully equal society and never have, we certainly don’t have the kind of social stratification that is so common in so many parts of the world. That whole deferential, “let me bow” thing.

How did that story go? At the 1908 Olympics the U.S. flagbearer didn’t dip the American flag as U.S. athletes passed the royal stand at opening ceremonies in London. That may have been about the bearer being of Irish origin as much as anything else, but it has become ingrained in American culture. The U.S. flag doesn’t dip at the Olympics.

So, anyway: Sir Paul. I’m not a Sir Paul. Don’t feel like one. Maybe McCartney got used to it; I never will.