Lord, my

   In modem times this form of address would be heard most frequently in a supreme court in Britain, addressed to a judge. It also remains the formal way of addressing a nobleman below the rank of duke, and a Roman Catholic bishop. There is an affected pronunciation of ‘my lord’, still occasionally used by some members of the legal profession although it has been mocked by writers such as Dickens. It is often written as ‘m’lud’ or ‘me lud’, and is pronounced, as someone once said, ‘as near to mud as possible’. This courtroom usage underpins a scene in The Mackerel Plaza, by Peter de Vries, where the narrator finds himself being interrogated by some acquaintances, including a lawyer.

   When the questioning comes close to being a crossexamination he begins to use ‘my lord’ to the questioner. ‘Everything in order there, eh, my lord?’ He continues: I spoke, despite the witticism, with my head somewhat atilt and with that high assurance that distinguishes the true martyr from the sullen scapegoat. The vocative was a kind of arm offered to help them up a step on to this higher plane, too, while also supplying a dash of irony we all needed, a bit of the garlic of parody rubbed on the strong meat of these proceedings.

   A simpler version of all this is found in Festival, by N.J.Crisp: ‘When I came on with the suitcase, I could hardly lift it. Some joker had put a couple of stage weights in it. I nearly ruptured myself.’ His eyes lingered on Ben Stamford. ‘Not guilty, my lord,’ Ben Stamford said promptly.

   The far more normal use of ‘my lord’ in a British courtroom context is found in, e.g., Brothers in Law, by Henry Cecil. In that particular novel, which has 217 pages in one paperback edition, ninety-five instances of ‘my lord’ occur, a great deal of the action taking place in court.

   In Bless me, Father, by Neil Boyd, a Roman Catholic bishop is addressed as ‘my lord’. Penelope Gilliatt, in Splendid Lives, has the following: ‘“What do you like to be called?” Ridgeway asked [the bishop]. “Well, you could try ‘My lord’, but I don’t really care for it much in conversation, do you? It’s a bit of a boulder. That leaves ‘Dr Hurlingham’ or ‘Bishop’.”’ Some noblemen who are entitled to be addressed as ‘my lord’ may share the bishop’s feelings about its being a bit of a boulder, but they are likely to meet people who delight in using the vocative.

   In Vanity Fair, by William Thackeray, occurs:

   The old gentleman [Osborne] pronounced these aristocratic names with the greatest gusto. Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do. He came home and looked out his history in the Peerage; he introduced his name into his daily conversation, he bragged about his Lordship to his daughters.

   The same novel has a comment on the use of the title to those who are not entitled to it: ‘a swarthy little Belgian servant who could speak no language at all, but who…by invariably addressing Mr Smedley as “My lord”, speedily acquired that gentleman’s favour.’ According to report, a lavatory attendant at a well-known London store follows a similar practice of addressing all his clients as ‘my lord’.

   Literary examples of ‘my lord’ addressed to noblemen occur in countless novels. In Shakespeare’s plays there is usually someone who is so addressed. ‘My lord- begins the Earl of Northumberland, in Richard the Second (4:i), but Richard interrupts him: ‘No lord of thine, thou haught insulting man,/Nor no man’s lord; I have no name, no title -/No, not that name was given me at the font /But ‘tis usurp’d.’ Often in Shakespeare the vocative expression is expanded to ‘my dear lord’, ‘my good lord’, ‘my gracious lord’, ‘my noble lord’, etc. It is frequently used by a wife to her husband, for - as Katherina says in The Taming of the Shrew (5:ii), ‘Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper/Thy head, thy sovereign.’ In modern times ‘my lord’ is still sometimes used by a wife to a husband, either when the wife is in an especially snbmissive mood or is being playful. Examples of such usage occur in Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis and The Business of Loving, by Godfrey Smith (seven instances). Shakespeare joked about such usage, however, when used at the wrong social level. When Christopher Sly wakes up from his drunken stupor, and finds that he is being treated like a nobleman (Induction, The Taming of the Shrew), his supposed wife says to him: ‘How fares my noble lord?’ ‘Are you my wife,’ says Sly, ‘and will not call me husband? My men should call me “lord”; I am your goodman.’ ‘My husband and my lord, my lord and husband,’ says the page, acting the part of his wife. Wives have been referring to their ‘lords and masters’ with as much sincerity ever since.