Esquire
Last night I caught up on back episodes of one of my favourite cop shows, Blue Bloods. Please don’t hold that against me. I know it’s formulaic, PC, (even though in Series 2 they apear to have cut down on the praying round the family dinner table) and as the new Mayor said to Frank in Series 2 Ep 1, ‘A hold-over from the 20th century’, but I like it, okay? It is also instructional.
In one episode I noticed, for the first time, although I suspect it’s always been there, the sign on Frank’s daughter’s desk. It reads ‘Erin Reagan-Boyle, Esq’. Because ‘Esquire’ is a Western European designation applicable to men only, and because Erin is quite evidently a woman, at first I thought that either the production team had been sloppy, or that political correctness in the US had gone beyond madness. Then I looked it up and discovered that in the US the suffix ‘esq.’ designates individuals entitled to practice law, and may be used by both men and women. Where the hell did that one come from, I wonder?
Quintin Jardine's blog 
Well there’s a thing. I’ve learned something today. I would have thought just the same as you – or that it was some statement from the character saying ‘don’t assume just because I’m female…’ kind of thing.