One of the things that really, really drives me crazy is this notion that an Attorney General is a "General" or should be addressed as General. It's absurd. Best I can tell, it started as a joke, in a Seinfeld episode when the Postmaster General tells Kramer that he's a General in an effort to scare him to accept his mail. He and the Attorney General are no more "Generals" than a General Store is a general or the General Manager of a Kwiki Mart is a General. The General in that title relates to the fact that he is Attorney for all the US generally, not just a specific region.
A General in the military, on the other hand, is a rank. Attorney General is not a military or other rank, it is just the name of a specific position in the US Government. I think some Clinton or Obama era officials actually liked to be called "General", but it's improper.
I am starting to see it more and more in the public consciousness, and it needs to be stopped before the current generation of maleducated idiots accepts it as truth. The TV show "Billions" continually refers to the Attorney General as General X instead of "Mister X" and it hurts my ears.
/ rant
Not a lawyer, and I don’t even play one on TV, but I am pretty sure the protocol of addressing an attorney general as “general” has been in usage in the courtroom long before anyone ever heard of that TV show.
Well I had no idea about that. I’ve heard it as long as I can remember. Reading a blog about it that says Janet Reno was annoyed by it preferring to be called Ms. Reno.
Moreover, it seems the Supreme Court are wont to call the Solicitor General and the Attorney General ‘general’ but they have the authority to rule on proper usage in their own courtroom, and it was popularized by William Rehnquist, otherwise a stickler for grammar.
One more fun fact: What is the proper form of address for the SURGEON General? Answer: Admiral.