Discussion Groups / English Usage / February 2010

I would never use 'He's a doctor of chemistry'. I'd say 'He has a PhD in
 chemistry' or 'He has a doctorate in chemistry'.

You can, in some cases, say 'a doctor of...' but I think that's usually
at a higher level (that is, 'a doctor of science or philosophy or law)
and more often seems to refer to the degree not the person holding it.
So you might say 'The University awarded Mr. Smith a doctor of science
degree' - if you were being very formal.

I'm in Canada, and so am somewhat influenced by both UK and US English.

Holger  wrote  on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:18:11 +0100:

I'm not aware of the degree "Doctor of Chemistry" from any reputable
institution and there is more than one way of expressing an earned
doctorate: PhD or DPhil, for example. There is also DSc, which is
sometimes awarded without an intervening PhD, etc. If you want to give
the subject of the PhD, you might want to be more specific. I have a
PhD, in Chemical Crystallography awarded by a Chemistry Department, but
I would not be the person to ask about Biochemistry or Organic
Chemistry. A possibility for me might have been "PhD (Chemical
Crystallography)".

PhD is taken to be short for the Latin, "Philosophiae Doctor", meaning
"Doctor of Philosophy" and it was named this for historical reasons
not relevant to this discussion.

I my own experience, "He has a PhD in chemistry" would be more nearly
the same as "He has a doctorate in chemistry" than it would be to
"He's a doctor of chemistry", because the phrase "doctor of chemistry"
is more closely associated in my mind to a higher degree like DChem,
even though I do not know for sure that such a degree may actually
exist. In the case of "He's a doctor of chemistry", I would expect the
degree to be something like D.Chem, though I am not sure what
abbreviation might be chosen. However, a "doctorate in chemistry" can
refer to any doctorate in which the main area of study or research was
chemistry.

In the above, I'm using as a model, the two kinds of doctorates one
can sometimes see when one gains a higher degree in Psychology, where
one can get a PhD or a DPsy, DPsych (alternatively a PsyD or a
PsychD). If a man possessed either a DPsy (DPsych) or PsyD (PsychD)
then I would view "He's a doctor of Psychology" to be a totally
correct statement. "He has a doctorate in Psychology" would also be
quite correct. It would obviously not be correct to say "He has a PhD
in Psychology" in these cases.

It may well be that I am making too much of a distinction between
types of degrees that others find to be almost identical, but in my
own mind and in the way I would formulate sentences about them, the
above is what would guide me in terms of which kind of sentences to
use.

Not synonymous.

He might have a DSc in chemistry.

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:18:11 +0100 from Holger Freese <holger@freese-
privat.de>:

"He has a PhD in Chemistry" is how Americans would say it.