Your Excellency!

On his first day in office, Italy's new Premier, Ferruccio (Common Man) Parri (TIME, July 2) was bothered by a clerk who kept .addressing him with the customary title of Eccellenza--Your Excellency. When asked how he should be addressed, the Premier answered: "As I happen to be a professor, why not just address me as Professor Parri?" Two days later the Council of Ministers, led by Socialist Vice Premier Pietro Nenni, voted unanimously to abolish the title of Eccellenza.

Said the Socialist Avanti: "Thus disappears from our customs an archaic hangover from the days of the Spaniards. To give the title of Excellency no longer is a prerogative of the state but of shoeshine boys who may use or abuse it at their will and the will of their clients." Said the moderate Risorgimento Liber ale: "Don't be angry, Eccellenza Nenni, but do you think it is wise to attack Neapolitan shoeshine boys, who also will have their share in elections, with a tendency towards socialism? . . . And do you know-Freud found that our indignation at a word or a contemptible action is in direct proportion to our secret disposition towards that word or action we reprove so much? . . . The word eccellenza is derived, if we are not mistaken, from . eccellere [to excel]. Doesn't Nenni excel as a politician? We want excellent governors, and we are willing to call them Eccellenza. . . . And now we hope that Your Excellency will not scowl at us. . . ."

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