Talk:Royal Recognition of Excellence

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Lachlan, Malcolm added the line about putting RRE after ones name... Do we do that? I've never seen that in any of the law documents. Is it a herald thing? Curiosity killing the cat --Kolfinna 17:25, 8 March 2009 (PDT)

I've seen it a couple of times, but it's pretty unusual. Twenty plus years ago, it was the practice (whenever one sent a letter on paper) to append initials for awards and honors; ODC OHA was a pretty common tag. Not so much anymore.

GH

  • The practice of appending award initials to one's SCA name is related to the current practice in English peerage and other places. It is still fairly frequently done in the SCA today, especially "OP", "OL" and "KSCA", which are at least meaningful everywhere in the SCA. But probably every SCA award has been initialized. In some kingdoms, the correct initials are specified in kingdom law. Thankfully, Caid had never done that since the practice has now fallen into disfavor (at least with the heralds) as a post-period affectation.--Lachlan 10:33, 9 March 2009 (PDT)
    • So does this mean we should remove from the article? --Kolfinna 11:03, 9 March 2009 (PDT)

From: Malcolm Alberic

Lachlan I disagree with your statement! Years ago, when this award was first explained to me, it was described as being comparable to a mundane Royal Warrant (see royalwarrant.org) in which the recipient is granted the right to use certain symbols and/or statements on documents, labels, letterheads etc. That is in essence what the award IS; there is no medallion, no visual symbol for it. Thus in the case of Caidan Royal Recognition of Excellence, the recipient gets to use the abbreviation RRE after their name, which has nothing to do with the practice of placing the “alphabet soup” of award abbreviations such as "OP", "OL" and "KSCA", after one’s name. Of course the people who would really know for sure would be Martin and Neptha.

  • Thank you for your perspective. I have never heard that background. I would be interested to know more. I'm not so sure that I hold with your reasoning that "RRE" is any different than "KSCA". The award may be patterned after a period institution, but that isn't the way Royal Warrant works. The recipient gets to say "I'm the tailor to the King by Royal Warrant", not "I'm John Taylor, RW". But there isn't any prohibition against an SCA King and Queen starting a practice that isn't closely related to period practice (especially relating to awards!).--Lachlan 21:55, 18 December 2009 (PST)
  • I've given it some additional thought today. As for this site, I think the best practice is as follows: An individual or group who has received a Royal Recognition of Excellence can (perhaps should) indicate the award on the individual's or group's own page (Populace, Territory, Household, etc.) If I had my druthers, we would give the award its full dignity, perhaps "recipient of Royal Recognition of Excellence". (The way the award appears on Sancti Gironimi's page is perfect!) We shouldn't attach "RRE" to every instance of a recipient's name throughout the site. Granting there is a difference between "RRE" and "KSCA", I don't expect a large portion of the readership to recognize it. A knight could say, "He has 'RRE' after his name everywhere, I should have 'KSCA' after my name everywhere." Taken to an extreme, it could make this site very difficult to read.--Lachlan 19:40, 19 December 2009 (PST)

Actually... The award was intended to provide the Crown with a way to recognize people for special contributions that didn't fit a specific existing reward. Sadly, it devolved during some reigns into being dubbed the "Royal Attaboy" tnd there have been some recipients in the past who have been dismayed that it might be the Crown's way to tell them indirectly that they weren't going to get be getting a "big" award any time soon.

To the best of my knowledge, very few if any people put RRE after their name as it's more about receiving a commendation than an award. It's not really a Royal Purveyor Warrant although it has been likened to that in terms of the authenticity of the Crown bestowing such an honor. Think of it as the Crown's way of saying, "We publically recognized you (individual, group, etc.) for contributing in a special way to the kingdom."

I would be very happy to write to His Grace Duke Martin and get the first-hand comment, if you'd like.

-- Natalya (12/19/09 9:26 pm and I think I didn't add this comment in the right format...

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