Yea, I call myself a quality inspector but some twit put me down as a quality engineer for a new customer (looks good) so now i have split prsonality
In italy (as here really) lots of people who would be technicians are calling themselves engineers. I care little for names. It's what a person can and can't do that counts
well quite, I prefer to know someones abilities and achievements than their title. Titles can be bought anyhow at least in some countries (I have a cousin in Italy that bought a degree so that he can be called doctor - looks good in the phne directory )
Each country has its own regulations/language versions for the word "engineer".
Although there are many people cheating on their titles, here in Italy one can be registered as a professional engineer (and sign as an engineer) after a degree and passing an exam (wiki says that our type A and B "ingegnere" correspond respectively to "Chartered" and "Incorporated" engineer in the UK...). In the common language, an "ingegnere" is one having a master degree (3+2 years).
Experience counts a lot, and it's clear that a title doesn't say if you are a good engineer or not. At university they gave me mainly theoretical instruments, which can be useless without passion and common sense. However, it's clear that there's still a difference between someone having a certain formal training together with experience and who has the same experience but has studied less.
I don't care very much about what the others do about this, but improperly using a title is not so fair towards who has studied hard for achieving it, IMH,and biased,O.