I have long disapproved of the job-title inflation which has led to ordinary programmers (like me) to be called "systems analysts", "software engineers", "architects". But banning someone from referring to themselves as an engineer seems like banning a woodworker from referring to themselves as a "cabinet maker", because they aren't a member of the International Society of Professional Cabinet Makers.
The best word for someone who does engineering is "engineer". By restricting the use of the term to members of some professional society that charges annual fees for membership and exams, this looks like private law. At most, the judgement should have restrained this guy from calling himself a "professional engineer", which arguably might have violated the trademark of The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. But that's not what he called himself.
When in Rome. Early in my career I was hesitant to call myself a software "engineer", but then everyone started calling themselves that, and quite a few of them can barely produce a working CRUD app. Calling myself a "programmer" or "developer" would serve no purpose at this point except to put me a step below them in the eyes of employers.
Well, I take a different view. I don't place a high value on self-testimonials, such as one might find in the average CV. I rate a - er - developer on what they can do, as demonstrated by their achievements. In particular, I don't have much respect for recruiters who place any value on job titles as a guide to predicted performance.
I really am just a programmer; I have had tasks assigned that amounted to "architecture", in the sense of designing a complex system that involved networking, heterogenous processors and storage systems, and advanced terminals.
I was once assigned the rank of "systems analyst". I had no idea what a systems analyst was, so I looked it up. It bore no relation to the job I was doing; apparently a systems analyst was a person that traipsed around a shopfloor with a clipboard and a stopwatch, looking for inefficient processes and work-practices.
I've never called myself an "engineer". To my mind, an engineer is a designer who creates designs that are extremely robust and reliable, while keeping costs within "reasonable" bounds. I've never had a job that allowed me to indulge in that kind of work.
I'm content to call myself a "computer programmer".
In many jurisdictions, certain words are "regulated" by law, or by an organization which is has legal authority. This is true for titles like "Engineer," and also academic accomplishments like "Bachelors Degree." (Unlike "certificate," which is not regulated in most places. Some certificates require 24 units. Others require clicking through a website.)
Canada has its laws and regulations, the US has its laws and regulations, etc.
If you don't like the law/regulation, you can try change it. But while they exist, they should be enforced. And while not perfect, these (regulations on names) exist for very good reason, and they're usually very precise. You and I don't get to decide what "should" be allowed.
In canada, engineer is a protected title like doctor or police officer due to the harm it can cause other people (engineer as in bridge builder, not engineer as in nodejs coder).
Yup. A doctor of philosophy is a doctor; but he shouldn't be allowed to call himself a Doctor of Medicine, if he doesn't have a doctorate in medicine.
[Edit] "Doctor" is from the Latin docēre, "to teach". That is, a doctor in some field is a person with enough expertise to teach that field. From that POV, a medical doctor is an anomaly; my General Practitioner is an MD, but he's not qualified to teach medical students.
And "terrific" is from the Latin terrificus, "terrifying, frightening"[0].
I'm not sure if it's a formal fallacy, but "argument from etymology" is, at best, an extremely weak argument. Just because that's what the word came from over 1000 years ago doesn't mean that's how we do or should use it today.
A doctor is one who has a doctorate. Period. That is what the word means today.
Plenty of people without doctorates teach, in all kinds of ways. (For one thing, grade school teachers in the US are only required to have a Masters at most.)
And if a non licensed medical professional told people they were a doctor for political capital, should that be allowed? I have an engineering degree but I don't claim to be an engineer, that's a protected term in Canada.
But he did graduate engineering school. He's got the iron ring. How the hell is somebody who went through the Ritual of the Calling of an Engineer not allowed to call themselves an engineer?!
what bothers me the most is here is an ambigious shortening of a phrase "professional enginner" (or P.Eng.) which I would be fine to say, yes, dont call yourself a P.Eng. when that is part of a cult/guild/group/ect; but then it is also restricted is the "generalized" term of it. all of the other points folks write about actually add-more-details, but in this case they're restricting the detail-removed form; bummer for them and I hope that "confusion" (enforced by the "Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists", (maybe we should abbreviate them as "Ass. of PEG") ) is one day better handeled and not restricting a general term
edit: can you call yourself an engineer but not part of ass of peg in the same sentence/paragraph?
A recent weblog post going over the history of this starting back in ~1200:
> However, the term “doctor” wasn’t usually used to speak about those who subsequently went on to work with patients in the field of medicine. Why? Well, the term “doctor” comes from the Latin verb “docere” meaning to teach. So, if you were called a medical doctor it meant that you were teaching at Salerno, not that you were out in the field actually doing the stuff you were trained to do.
> The people who got trained at Salerno, took their degree, and went out into the world to practice medicine needed a title which made it clear that they were not university professors, but university trained, so that people knew what their job was. And they had one – they were called physicians.
[…]
> In English the term “doctor” didn’t start being used to address people with medical degrees until the seventeenth century, and it began more particularly in Scotland. Funnily, the use of the term was meant to confirm respect to the doctor confirming that, yes, they were very smart indeed. Yes, that’s right – they were as smart as all the people with PhDs, bless them.[8] The medical people were trying to catch up with the humanities people because everyone knew that it’s really hard to get a PhD and it confers authority. This took off because everyone post-enlightenment absolutely loves to crank themselves about how important Science is, or whatever. The fact remains however, that it is a relatively new occurrence.
The medical folks should probably be called physicians:
> Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin Medicinae Doctor) is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. This generally arose because many in 18th-century medical professions trained in Scotland, which used the M.D. degree nomenclature. In England, however, Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (M.B.B.S.) was used and eventually in the 19th century became the standard in Scotland too. Thus, in the United Kingdom, Ireland and other countries, the M.D. is a research doctorate, honorary doctorate or applied clinical degree restricted to those who already hold a professional degree (Bachelor's/Master's/Doctoral) in medicine. In those countries, the equivalent professional degree to the North American, and some others' usage of M.D. is still typically titled Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery.[1]
> Even though the M.D. is a professional degree and not a research doctorate (i.e., a Ph.D.), many holders of the M.D. degree conduct research and publish in journals during training and after graduation. Combined medical and research training is offered through programs granting an MD-PhD. […] The United States Department of Education and the National Science Foundation do not include the M.D. or other professional doctorates among the degrees that are equivalent to real doctorates.[68][69]
If you get scammed by someone who calls themselves a doctor with no credentials and you believe it, there is no hope for you. No law will protect you from yourself.
If you couldn't stop hitting yourself, a law against it wouldn't help either.
The best word for someone who does engineering is "engineer". By restricting the use of the term to members of some professional society that charges annual fees for membership and exams, this looks like private law. At most, the judgement should have restrained this guy from calling himself a "professional engineer", which arguably might have violated the trademark of The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists. But that's not what he called himself.