Concept
Honorific
Overview
An honorific is a title that conveys esteem, courtesy, or respect for position or rank when used in addressing or referring to a person. It is also often conflated with systems of honorific speech in linguistics, which are grammatical or morphological ways of encoding the relative social status of speakers. Honorifics can be used as prefixes or suffixes depending on the appropriate occasion and presentation in accordance with style and customs. Sometimes, the term "honorific" is used in a more specific sense, to refer to an honorary academic title.
Typically, honorifics are used as a style in the grammatical third person (eg, His Holiness), and as a form of address in the second person (eg, Your Majesty). Some languages have anti-honorific (despective or humilific) first person forms (expressions such as "your most humble servant" or "this unworthy person") whose effect is to enhance the relative honor accorded to the person addressed; these are nowadays used only in formal written correspondence.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Honour consisteth in the inward thought, and opinion of the Power, and Goodnesse of another: and therefore to Honour God, is to think as Highly of his Power and Goodnesse, as is possible. And of that opinion, the externall signes appearing in the Words, and Actions of men, are called Worship; which is one part of that which the Latines understand by the word Cultus: For Cultus signifieth properly, and constantly…
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
States what Honorific is.
Hence it happens that they are usually full of suspicion, and become soon angry; with whom none of their own choice are familiar. But there are gentle people, who interpret all for the best, and are not suspicious; do not permit themselves to be soon irritated; can at least understand something as well meant; such persons as are called _Candidos_. This virtue St. Paul names [Greek: chrestotes], as it is often…
Martin Luther, The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained
States what Honorific is.
They think they are ascribing a peculiar _sort_ of agreeableness, analogous to that which they find in some other of the things to which they are accustomed to apply the same name. If, therefore, there be any peculiar sort of agreeableness which is common though not to all, yet to the principal things which are called beautiful, it is better to limit the denotation of the term to those things, than to leave that…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Honorific is.
Philosophers who discussed Honorific
Related ideas
- Egalitarianism
- French Revolution
- Persian language
- Anglicanism
- Hindi
- Gujarati language
- India
- Japan
- American English
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Bengali language
- Pakistan
- Filipino language
- East Africa
- Spanish language
- Socialism
- Singapore
- Swahili
- Sikhs
- Tamil language
- Turkish language
- Theravada
- Urdu
- Vietnamese language
Place in the tradition
Part of Illuminationism.