ESR Onthesannyside? (for Emeritus Semi-Retiree Onthesannyside)

An ST reader, Mr Tan Soon Meng, wrote in his letter on Tuesday (11 Oct) that he was concerned that the use of the novel title of Emeritus Senior Minister (ESM) for Mr Goh Chok Tong would diminish Mr Goh's stature. This is Mr Tan's take:

"May I appeal to the Government and Mr Goh Chok Tong not to use the title Emeritus Senior Minister (ESM) and refer to Mr Goh as Singapore's former prime minister instead.

"In recent press reports, Mr Lee Kuan Yew has been referred to as 'founding prime minister' or 'former prime minister' and both terms work because they capture Mr Lee's importance.

"If he were called Emeritus Minister Mentor, it would be a term of far less significance.

"The term 'Emeritus Senior Minister' tells us only that Mr Goh was a former senior minister and ignores the fact that he held the office of prime minister for more than 13 years.

"This is because the position of seniot minister is not exclusive to former prime ministers of Singapore [note: we have only two ex-prime ministers: LKY and GCT], as Mr S. Rajaratnam and Professor S. Jayakumar have both been senior minister despite not having been prime minister.

"There are two other reasons not to use the Emeritus Senior Minister. First, the title has no precedent anywhere in the world [hmmm... that qualifies it as a Singapore entry in the Guinness World Records?] and is likely to confuse foreigners [well, I'm sure they are already confused by our strange misuse of words like 'parking lot' and 'please revert'], some of whom may have to be told that Mr Goh was a former prime minister.

"Second[ly], the title wrongly suggests that Mr Goh currently holds an official, possibly, Cabinet position.

"Previously, the titles of Minister Mentor [note: this title was also unique] and Senior Minister were used because Mr Lee and Mr Goh were in the Cabinet, and needed official titles to reflect their ministerial positions.

"Now that Mr Goh is no longer in th Cabinet, the term 'former prime minister' more accurately captures his importance in our history.

"I hope the Government will consider this a suggestion from the people of Singapore -- as I am sure I am not the only one who feels this way -- who would like Mr Goh's full and proper significance to be recognised."

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Mr Tan's is indeed an interesting letter, and I await with bated breath for some sort of official response.

But how has the adjective "emeritus" been used? A simple yet adequate definition comes from the online English Collins Dictionary: "Emeritus is used with a professional title to indicate that the person bearing it has retired but keeps the title as an honour."

Hence, in academia, certain retired eminent scholars are conferred the title, say, "emeritus professor of physics". People accept that.

In the religious realm, there is the title "archbishop emeritus". One such person is South Africa's Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu. This title, albeit rarely given, seems to have been accepted by church followers. The rest of us are free to follow suit or not.

Maybe therein lies the solution. The Singapore Government and Mr Goh will certainly use the title. The local media has already followed suit [abuthen?]. Many ordinary people will do likewise, the way they say "parking lot" when they mean "parking space".

I don't see why the rest of us, or the rest of the world, should be so fixated about it. It won't change the price of fish. So, anyone wants to put "emeritus" in his title? I spotted this one in a recent Canon ad in TODAY:

Hmmm, since I consider myself semi-retired, I will ponder over whether to call myself Emeritus Semi-Retiree (ESR) Onthesannyside. You don't care? That's precisely my point.