With a brief smile for Maz, Miles says, "I'm getting there. I can't really explain how things change without making sure you understand what they're changing from," he says. "So by default, you would address my father as Count Vorkosigan. Being married to his son, you can also get away with the less formal but still somewhat arm's-length Count Aral. My mother, who is Betan and still doesn't really buy into all this Vorfoolishness, will invite you to call her Cordelia, which as a friend-or-relative you may freely do. If Father tells you to call him Aral, then likewise. Except in formal legal settings like a District Court or the Council of Counts, where it's always appropriate to use the most formal title."

He takes a breath and keeps going.

"And if there was exactly one each of every Lord Vorsoandso, that could be the end of it, but in fact there's also 'courtesy titles' - Ivan is an example - people for whom some ancestor impressed an Emperor and was rewarded with the privilege of calling himself Lord Vorlastname and his wife Lady Vorlastname, which is then passed on to his eldest son, and so on and so forth, a little bit like a teeny tiny miniature Countship. Their siblings and non-heir children get to be non-heritable Lords and Ladies Firstname too, and because you can now potentially have two distinct Lords or Ladies Vorsamelastname in the same conversation, any Lord Vorsomebody can be addressed as a Lord Firstname for disambiguation purposes. So if the Vorpatril heir started hanging out with Ivan a lot, they'd be Lord Ivan and Lord I-forget-the-damn-kid's-name - you get the idea, though, I hope - but it would be weirder to address me as Lord Miles, because the Vorkosigans family tree has been pretty aggressively pruned and I'm the only Lord Vorkosigan around. Does that answer your question or should I babble some more?"