re: WSJ piece about Jill Biden gets author cancelled from Northwestern

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Yes, of course you can refer to a professor or someone with a PhD as Dr. ____, but you don’t say, “they’re a doctor”,

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This is the crux of the argument that always pops up from time to time. In English we typically refer to physicians and surgeons generically as “doctor.” However, the original usage of doctor comes from academia and means teacher. So in the truest sense of the word, a professor is the only “real” doctor.

It’s kind of like referring to a medical doctor as a scientist. Sure, they have a lot of medical science knowledge but rarely does a typical MD/DO “do” science.

The real problem is the plethora of doctorate programs that have emerged in various fields. For example, Jill Biden has an Ed.D. and not a PhD in Education. The achievement is quite different, yet the average person probably is none the wiser.