You’re thinking about the “Professional Engineer” title or some variant thereof.

You’ll be happy to hear that anyone can call themselves an engineer, even in Oregon, as a Federal Court correctly decided in a first amendment case brought by Mats Järlström.

https://ij.org/press-release/oregon-engineer-wins-traffic-li...

You’re welcome.

Strange hill.

Police is a protected title but anyone can be a thought police. One can be a spin doctor without any academic acumen. Notice how when qualified, the words take on a broader and sometimes illustrative meaning than when used in isolation. Context matters.

Now do every other common term in software engineering.