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A reader from across the pond corrects the American media's references (and ours) to Harvey Weinstein as "Sir Harvey" after he was recognized as an honorary Commander of the British Empire last week.

UPDATE after the jump.

Harvey Weinstein is nowhere near becoming a 'Sir'. He's got the CBE (which is the most minor one) but there's loads of other honours you have to get before being knighted (becoming Sir) - like MBE and OBE. Personally I think the whole system smacks of old-world Imperialism propping up a redundant monarchy and systems of disgusting heirarchy which has absolutely no relevance in today's UK, but hey, nobody asked me.

But being the nit-picking sort that I am, I couldn't resist correcting the enthusiasm of the US press to call Mr Sack-Happy Harvey 'Sir'. He's not.

This information is suprisingly comforting. We'd envisioned Weinstein grabbing the sword that he was being ceremonially knighted with to wipe out an entire Miramax department in the name of budgetary savings. It's much harder to behead the whole publicity staff with just a medal.

UPDATE: In the interest of correcting our correction, several of you wrote to question the accuracy of our foreign correspondent's grasp of the arcane British honorary system of Commanders, Knights, Dames, and, we think—though this could be the coffee talking—Mr. Beans.

On the off chance you still care, whilst your nit picking correspondent 'from across the pond' (though I have my doubts) is correct in saying Big Harv is not a 'sir', thats where the accuracy of their message ends.

For the sake of clarity, queen and country, the ranking is as follows (in descending order)

Knight or Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire (G.B.E.)
Knight or Dame Commander of the British Empire (K.B.E. or D.B.E.)
Commander of the British Empire (C.B.E.)
Officer of the British Empire (O.B.E.)
Member of the British Empire (M.B.E.)

So, Harvey is middle ranking, not the most minor.

Hoping that this clarification finally puts this matter to rest, we'll leave you with another reader's truly excellent grasp of why any of this matters on this side of the ocean:

But there's relief for all those who feared they might have to utter phrases such as "I just got fired by Sir Harvey Weinstein" or "Is that Sir Harvey threatening to have me killed?" - foreign, honorary Knights of the Order don't get called "sir".