mg.
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imgur, "On forms of address for non-binaries", by apolloendymion:
since mrs, ms, and mr are all descended from the latin word magister, i propose the gender neutral version should be mg, short for "mage"
some people think this is a shitpost so i want to clarify that i am dead fucking serious. make mage the official gender neutral honorific NOW. i want it on my passport. i want it on my bank account. i want doctors and judges to use it for me. i don't care if it sounds a little silly. people thought "missus" sounded crass at first. call me mg.
benefits of mg:
• easy to pronounce, even for children (though kids 4 & younger may pronounce it more like "mayd" or "maygh")
• easy to pronounce, even for children (though kids 4 & younger may pronounce it more like "mayd" or "maygh")
• ONE SYLLABLE!!! ("individual" is too goddamn LONG.) you have to be able to say it quickly and casually
• ends in a soft consonant sound, so it'll flow right into the next word ("ind" halts the whole sentence)
• fits neatly into the existing structure as a relative of master/mistress that can be abbreviated down to an m and one other letter
• distinct enough that it can't be mistaken for either gendered term (if you call me mix I'll kill you. it sounds like miss with extra steps)
• fits neatly into the existing structure as a relative of master/mistress that can be abbreviated down to an m and one other letter
• distinct enough that it can't be mistaken for either gendered term (if you call me mix I'll kill you. it sounds like miss with extra steps)
• wizard.
drawbacks:
• there aren't any
• yes, i know about milligrams and magnesium. i don't give a shit. ms can also mean microsoft. who cares.
• there aren't any
• yes, i know about milligrams and magnesium. i don't give a shit. ms can also mean microsoft. who cares.
The thing I (and many others) detested most about ms. when it first came out was that nobody was sure how to pronounce it — or even what it meant. I feel the same problems may plague "mg.", though I kinda like it, and I'm not even a nonbinary.
Selected reading
- "The first proposal for 'Ms.' (1901)" (6/23/09)
- "Miss" (7/3/18)
- "Impolite politeness?" (5/16/10)
- "How to address your professor" (1/6/19)
- "Mr. and Ms. in Chinese" (8/25/13)
- "Horses, soma, riddles, magi, and animal style art in southern China" (11/11/19)
- Victor H. Mair, “Old Sinitic *Myag, Old Persian Maguš, and English Magician,” Early China, 15 (1990), 27–47.
[Thanks to Tim Leonard and Ben Zimmer]
Miles said,
June 18, 2024 @ 6:42 am
Interesting proposal, but in my mind "mage" does associate with someone male, so it might have to overcome that to be widely accepted as gender-neutral.
Of course, the failure might just be on my part, and perhaps everyone else makes no strong gender association when they hear mage – although I note even the proponent gives one of the arguments as "wizard" and surely wizard is commonly associated with the male side of the magic-using community.
Peter Taylor said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:21 am
I'd have thought that the drawbacks might include people who are either unfamiliar with the term or object to it pronouncing the abbreviation as "mug".
Cervantes said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:30 am
Yabbut it also means sorcerer. The word is taken.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:34 am
Or…
J.W. Brewer said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:00 am
"Mage" is (via French) from Latin "magus" (a loanword from Greek, which borrowed it in turn from some early Iranian language) and has no etymological connection to Latin "magister" or "magistra." (Those come from "magis" which is not even homophonous with "magus" in Latin unless pronounced too Englishly such that both final vowels reduce to schwa.) I too think of "mage" as a gendered word, although if the proponent of this idea doesn't I guess that's some evidence that not everyone does. I see that "mage" is masc. in French but I don't know if it's paired in French with a fem. alternative for the same occupation or trade.
Mike Anderson said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:05 am
Oh, wow. I thought it was short for Magoo.
I prefer "comrade" or "citizen."
Yuval said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:56 am
@Cervantes: well, so is "misses".
Sean said,
June 18, 2024 @ 10:09 am
Doesn't the contrast miss / missus go back hundreds of years? https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/mistress-miss-mrs-or-ms-untangling-the-shifting-history-of-titles
Rodger C said,
June 18, 2024 @ 10:15 am
Well, Cortazar had a character he called La Maga, so there's that.
Philip Taylor said,
June 18, 2024 @ 10:45 am
It is only because of the preceding comments that I now realise that apolloendymion intended/intends that "mg" be pronounced /meɪdʒ / — I had, before reading the comments, assumed that he intended it to be pronounced /məɡ/ and was therefore puzzled by his "ends in a soft consonant sound".
NSBK said,
June 18, 2024 @ 11:06 am
I don't think I have any gender association with "mage", and if it is supposedly masculine then I can't think of what might be the corresponding feminine word.
I was young enough when Harry Potter came out that for me "witch" is the counterpart to "wizard". Then there's of course sorceress/sorcerer.
As for "mage" coming from "magus" and not "magis", I think the OP is suggesting that there would now be two entries for "mage" in a dictionary: the one whose etymology is from "magus" and now one whose etymology is from "magis". I think the OP lists "wizard" as a benefit to mean that they enjoy the wordplay/coincidence.
My next question though, is how do I fill in the blank here? I live in the US South, so this is probably more important here than in other parts of the English speaking world:
[title] –> [vocative]
Mr –> Sir
Ms –> Ma'am
Mg –> ______????
Gregory Kusnick said,
June 18, 2024 @ 11:11 am
There is a gender-neutral honorific already in common use: Dr.
One might object that most of the people wanting such an honorific aren't actually doctors, but then they aren't actually mages either.
I think it would be interesting if non-binary people coopted Dr in much the same way that gay people coopted the word "gay". They don't need anyone's permission to do it; no government forms would have to be revised. It doesn't have to be "official" (whatever that might mean); it can be just something that people do for themselves.
And meaning no offense to the PhDs in the audience, why should a career in medicine or academia entitle one to a special honorific anyway?
J.W. Brewer said,
June 18, 2024 @ 11:43 am
@NSBK: The only formal-register vocatives I can think of in the traditional English stock that are not gendered as masc. or fem. are either occupational (Doctor, Professor, Senator, Sergeant) or of the form "Your Honor/Worship/Highness/Majesty," which seems to evoke a higher rung of social hierarchy than mere Sir/Ma'am. Innovation would be necessary and I guess it would ideally not be jocular. The "mage" suggestion, I am assuming charitably, is not intended jocularly by its proponent even if it may strike me that way.
And of course "mage" is itself an occupational title in its core meaning, which may occasionally be used vocatively. (A seemingly self-published fantasy novel in the google corpus has a line of dialogue beginning "The truth is painful to behold, Mage Kingstone …" and another, possibly professionally published, has a dragon saying "You are mistaken, O mage.")
Philip Taylor said,
June 18, 2024 @ 12:48 pm
"meaning no offense to the PhDs in the audience, why should a career in medicine or academia entitle one to a special honorific anyway?" — speaking as one who does not hold a PhD, "because they have worked d@mned hard to gain that distinction".
David said,
June 18, 2024 @ 1:24 pm
@Mike Anderson
>I prefer "comrade" or "citizen."
First thing that came to mind for me as well :)
@Gregory Kusnick
In Italy, holders of any university degree including undergraduate degrees are traditionally entitled to use the title of "dottore". As far as I know it's not so common for Italians with undergraduate degrees to do this, but in the German-speaking Southern Tyrol, nearly everyone is a Dr. To German speakers from other countries, this is quite comical.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brennerdoktor?useskin=vector
Terry K. said,
June 18, 2024 @ 2:16 pm
I dislike the diphthong in "mage". It feels wrong in that usage. Especially with it being one syllable only. Like, it should be something more natural to say unstressed.
I also dislike it being a word with a meaning that has nothing to do with this usage.
Xtifr said,
June 18, 2024 @ 2:55 pm
The generic non-binary honorific I've seen most often is Mx. It's not particularly common, as far as I can tell, but common enough that it has a page on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mx_(title)
I assume apolloendymion already knew of this (hence the bizarre comment about "call me mix, I'll kill you"). I'm not sure, but it smells to me like they're horrified at the thought of being mistaken for a woman. (In which case, F your misogynistic little A, dude!) Personally, I'd rather be called a term that sounds like "miss" than one that sounds like "mug" or "midge"! :)
Anthony said,
June 18, 2024 @ 3:09 pm
I thought a male witch was a warlock, not a wizard. (Wizard doesn't carry over the negative connotations of witch, and is actually positive.)
Daniel Deutsch said,
June 18, 2024 @ 3:44 pm
The final sound of Mage is quite a tooth cruncher that would make it difficult to say things like Mage Jones.
Gregory Kusnick said,
June 18, 2024 @ 5:24 pm
Philip: There are any number of professions (e.g. concert pianist, tennis player, ballerina, astronaut) that require damn hard work over many years to gain entry. The fact that we have special honorifics for academics and medical practitioners is purely a matter of social convention, not of any unique demands of those fields.
Terry K. said,
June 18, 2024 @ 6:17 pm
@Daniel Deutsch
What do you mean by a "tooth cruncher"? I've never heard that term, and I can't see how it would apply literally. There's no teeth involved in the sound.
Anthony said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:33 pm
As for the difficulty of saying Mage Jones, I've always said oranch juice rather than orange juice for the same reason. In practice, we find a way.
Lazar said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:39 pm
I've always been partial to the occasionally attested Mis'ess as the "full" spelling of Mrs., with – tentatively – an implied Mis' for Ms..
stephen said,
June 18, 2024 @ 7:53 pm
I would pronounce it mig, rhymes with big.
Andrew Usher said,
June 18, 2024 @ 8:33 pm
The original proposal, of course, can't and won't be taken seriously – the fact that it's in all lower case is enough to see that without examining it.
Moving on, then, to more interesting points, indeed phrases like 'Mage Jones' are difficult – English can't reduce sequences of affricates across a word boundary, doing so would give the listener either 'May Jones' or 'Maid Jones'; for another example, try "the cat's chat" – one might have assimilation to "the catch chat" but no further.
The gender of words like mage, wizard, etc. is difficult because we don't believe in literal magic anymore, so the literal meanings of those words are obsolete outside fantasy worlds. None of them is etymologically gendered male; nor is 'witch' female, though the non-literal use is so we still have e.g. ;witch hunt'. When German 'Zauberer' means a male 'Hexe', it should really be translated 'witch'; of the alternatives 'sorcerer' seems least bad, perhaps because of the shared -erer ending, a double agentive in the English word but not in the German.
Gregory Kusnick:
[quote]The fact that we have special honorifics for academics and medical practitioners is purely a matter of social convention, not of any unique demands of those fields.[/quote]
I wouldn't quite say this: it is a tradition, but the idea I think is that a PhD represents a more general state of being educated than merely a specialised occupational qualification. The extension to medical practioners simply reflects the occupational designation it has become for them.
k_over_hbarc at yahoo dot com
Seth said,
June 18, 2024 @ 11:30 pm
@Anthony – I think popular fantasy used to have the female/male gendering be witch/warlock and wizardess/wizard. But there were so relatively few warlocks and wizardesses that the gendering eventually became witch/wizard. Harry Potter and Discworld cemented this by sheer numbers, so it's the most common by far. I'd say "Mage" is like "Rabbi" – not technically a gendered term, but so few women were admitted to the ranks for a long time that it has male associations.
Andreas Johansson said,
June 19, 2024 @ 1:47 am
Coming from a place where honorifics aren't in regular use, I can't help but think there's a simpler solution.
(I'm sometimes forced to choose one when booking airline tickets etc., which feels like a rather weird imposition.)
Daniel Deutsch said,
June 19, 2024 @ 4:51 am
@Terry K.
Although d͡ʒ is not dental, our teeth are involved in creating the air turbulence of the sound.
“Its manner of articulation is sibilant affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the air flow entirely, then directing it with the tongue to the sharp edge of the teeth, causing high-frequency turbulence.“ (Wikipedia)
Speech therapists say we should bring our teeth together to start the sound.
In any event, due to the absurdity of the topic I wasn’t being quite serious when I said it would be awkward to pronounce Mage Jones distinctly. After all, millions of people say Judge Judy easily, but probably smoothed over with a bit of elision or lenition.
Philip Taylor said,
June 19, 2024 @ 5:31 am
I do not think that, were I to say "Mage Jones", it would be possible to know whether I had said that phrase or whether I had said "Major Jones" — I imagine that if I were truly rhotic this would not be the case,
David Marjanović said,
June 19, 2024 @ 7:14 am
I'm learning interesting things about English phonotactics here.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 19, 2024 @ 7:44 am
David Marjanović said,
Oh? Here's another anecdotal quasi-linguistic observation for ya:
Anthony said,
Anthony's observation only "works" if your idiolect pronounces "orange" like /ah'ranj/. If you pronounce it like /ohrnj'/ (i.e. long "o"), then you don't say /oranch juice/, you say /ohrn'juice/ (i.e. voiced /j/, not unvoiced /ch/).
Victor Mair said,
June 19, 2024 @ 7:45 am
Something pertinent happened to me just now. The eminent Dutch academic publishing house (founded 1683), Brill, has asked me to sign a document verifying that I agree to the terms of the contract regarding a book in which i have a chapter. No big problem, except I need to decide to tell them whether I am Dr. Mair or Prof. Mair.
At the same time, they asked for the contact information for my co-author, and they addressed her as "Dr.". In fact, she is not quite "Dr." yet, but rather "Master", and I'm tempted to tell them "Mg." — in both cases — so there would be no ambiguity. Ahem! Maybe the "Mg." would evoke the appropriate vagueness.
This happens all the time. My students and colleagues who do not have the Ph.D. are arbitrarily styled as "Dr." Most of them are embarrassed, even upset, by that, while a few others are smugly pleased. In any event, officials and administrators who have to fill in forms are often vexed by having to put down something when they don't really know the proper term of address and don't really have the opportunity to find out, so — not wanting to offend someone who doesn't have the Ph.D. — simply give the benefit of the doubt, and choose "Dr.".
This I can say for sure: many scholars who do not have the "Ph.D." are extremely learned, while many who do have it are not very learned at all.
And how about lawyers? Do they want to be addressed as "Esq."?
Finally, one of the most influential books I have ever read, which suits me to a T, is Magister Ludi:
=====
The Glass Bead Game (German: Das Glasperlenspiel, pronounced [das ˈɡlaːspɛʁlənˌʃpiːl] ⓘ) is the last full-length novel by the German author Hermann Hesse. It was begun in 1931 in Switzerland, where it was published in 1943 after being rejected for publication in Germany due to Hesse's anti-Fascist views.
"The Glass Bead Game" is a literal translation of the German title, but the book has also been published under the title Magister Ludi, Latin for "Master of the Game", an honorific title awarded to the book's central character. "Magister Ludi" can also be seen as a pun: magister is a Latin word meaning "teacher", while ludus can be translated as either "game" or "school". But the title Magister Ludi is somewhat misleading, as it implies the book is a straightforward bildungsroman, when, in reality, the book touches on many different genres, and the bulk of the story is on one level a parody of the genre of biography.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Bead_Game
=====
Philip Taylor said,
June 19, 2024 @ 8:03 am
As I am certain that David Marjanović would agree, if you had the good fortune to be based in Germany rather than in the United States, your correct title would be Prof. Dr. Victor Mair (see https://www.gesellschaft-der-ideen.de/de/home/_documents/jury-mitglider/prof-dr-johanna-mair.html for confirmation).
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 19, 2024 @ 8:38 am
Victor Mair said,
My father, EBO, Esq., always taught me that "Esquire", which is more-or-less a content-free medieval holdover, is only ever applied to _other_ lawyers, not oneself. So, I will address a letter to "Stu Youmidat, Esq.", but sign my own name sans-titre.
But, yes, there are those who do sign themselves, "Esquire", and I judge them accordingly!
Similarly, any lawyer who starts referring to me as "my learnèd colleague" or "esteemed counsellor" on the record is gonna earn any number of nonverbal responses from me that would not ordinarily be transcribed in a stenographic record.
Philip Taylor said,
June 19, 2024 @ 8:44 am
« But, yes, there are those who do sign themselves, "Esquire", and I judge them accordingly ! » — rather as I judge those who sign themselves "Mr" (or "Mr."), then …
Rodger C said,
June 19, 2024 @ 9:56 am
Victor, in some universities a person who's ready to start on their dissertation (having passed all prelims etc.) is actually given the title Master of Philosophy, or M.Phil. You could try it.
Philip Taylor is right about your Teutosphere title. I had a professor at IU who retired from there, was hired at Graz, and became a Herr Professor Doktor Doktor.
katarina said,
June 19, 2024 @ 10:29 am
When I was growing up in China decades ago, we called our schoolteachers 先生xiansheng (Mr.), which also meant "teacher". I remember two old maids who ran the best primary school in town always being addressed as xiansheng (Mister-Teacher). I thought it it so nice that they weren't addressed as "Miss". At home, we also addressed our governess, a young woman, as xiansheng, Mister-Teacher.
It was such an honor to be a male in those days. My mom, who was an only child, was given a boy's name and treated as an honorary boy. She was given the boy's privilege of a private full-time at-home tutor to teach her the classics. He was an "old" (40-ish) Bachelor of Arts (the Chinese xiucai degree) who apparently didn't see himself wasting his time teaching a girl the classics so would take her fishing instead. There was no one to check in on him because her dad was mostly in bed with his beautiful mistress and his opium, and her mom was bedridden with assorted maladies which killed her when my mom was eight. My mom did however learn a bit of the classics. Her level of Chinese was better than that of her women friends later on, but late in life she would complain that her tutor hadn't taken his job seriously. When I met her great-grand nephew in Los Angeles, he called her "Uncle" instead of "Aunt".
katarina said,
June 19, 2024 @ 10:41 am
Oops, I meant "nephew in Los Angeles".
Sar said,
June 19, 2024 @ 12:00 pm
@Xtifr
I would not read a fear of being (mis)identified as a woman as misogynist – the OP is likely AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) and probably has experience being purposefully misgendered by others.
@Andrew Usher
I think it's dismissive to use a simple orthographic style choice such as writing in all lowercase as a reason to discount someone's thoughts, especially on a mixed-register blogging platform like Tumblr. Would you discount the influential academic bell hooks for the same reason, because she asked that people write her name in lowercase?
—
In general I've seen Mx. as pretty widely used in my circles, which include a lot of GNC (gender non-conforming) people. Mx. (or Dr.) Kirby Conrod, who I believe is one of the major American academics focusing on the sociolinguistics of nonbinary genders, has said that they prefer that title.
I don't hate Mg. as a potential title, but I don't know if it can overtake the momentum that Mx. already has. Maybe we just need to be careful about enunciating the /ks/ to avoid potential confusion.
katarina said,
June 19, 2024 @ 3:32 pm
You never know with titles.
Years ago just after the Berlin Wall came down and Russia wasn't as open as now, I was working as a staffer at a research institution of a great American university. Some of the Fellows were Nobel laureates. I addressed the resident Fellows I knew by their first names and those I didn't know as "Doctor". There was a Fellow who had just come out of Russia, a middle-aged, very eminent scholar and former professor at a great university, in Moscow or St. Petersburg. Whenever I met him in the hallway, I'd say "Good morning, Doctor B___" or "Good afternoon Doctor B___." One day he stopped on the stairway suddenly, turned around and, looking at me, said suspiciously, "Why do you call me Doctor? It's Michael." After some time I met him again in the hallway. "Good morning, Michael," I said. He stopped, looked at me, and said curtly: "Mike." After that I'd say "Good morning, Mike", "Good afternoon, Mike", "Hello Mike" We never talked to each other.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 19, 2024 @ 4:13 pm
Just back to the "tooth cruncher" point. I'm not sure that it's just the "affricate" angle that's the problem with/meɪdʒ/ but the broader issue of it ending in a consonant cluster. I don't think any of the other widely-used titles end in clusters and I think this does impede smooth flow in a TITLE-SURNAME (or TITLE-GIVENNAME) combination. Now, of course "Mx." likewise ends with a cluster, if I've got the pronunciation right, and if it eventually reaches some sufficiently higher-than-current level of popularity that would be a counterexample to my theory that there's a functional reason why titles used in this fashion don't have final clusters. But I don't think "Mix Johnson" flows any more smoothly than "Midge Johnson"; neither is an insoluble problem for the Anglophone but Mr./Mrs./Miss/Ms./Dr./etc. all flow into "Johnson" more smoothly than either of those options does.
In any event, now I have a separate theory that the sorts of people who self-consciously propose innovations like this do not primarily think in sound-based terms when trying to coin a new word and/or consider the pros and cons of an idea they've had for a coinage, but are instead beguiled by spelling and symbolic associations (perhaps idiosyncratic ones) they read into the spelling.
maidhc said,
June 19, 2024 @ 8:19 pm
How about "Friend" as a universal title?
Perhaps not everyone is really your friend, but it's something we could aspire to.
Andrew Usher said,
June 19, 2024 @ 9:34 pm
Seth:
The thing, again, is that 'Mage' isn't a title in the real world, unlike 'Rabbi'; nor is the word 'mage' in common use with any meaning. So I don't think any gender associations could be very strong.
Andreas Johansson:
Of course, there's nothing wrong with honorifics not being in regular use, it's probably the best solution. And though it was probably suggested here in jest, a title along the lines of 'citizen' or 'comrade' really is likely the best if one must have universal titles, as that has the advantage of being class-neutral as well as, in English, gender-neutral.
Victor Mair:
Of course I don't mind giving the benefit of the doubt in using the title 'Doctor', and I don't object to its being used for 'learned scholars' even if they don't have a PhD degree. I note, given the previous, that many might have male associations for 'Doctor' …
Sar:
I don't like getting into this gender nonsense again, but the phrase 'Assigned Female at Birth' (capitalised even!) is ludicrous, suggesting the 'assignment' to be completely arbitrary. I would have simply referred to the author of this suggestion (if I had to distinguish) as female, because the writing even though short strongly gives the impression – and you also as female for the same reason. It seems consistently true that when sex is discernible from writing, people always come across as their true biological sex, regardless of 'gender identity' – one more reason to be sceptical of the latter.
As for the lower-case issue, doing it as a considered stylistic choice is different, and less objectionable, than doing it simply from laziness or 'to be cool'. Even more, I accept that there ought to be standards for written English, and violating them should imply disagreement with the standards – my use of certain British spellings is an example, as I wish everyone would do that.
J.W.Brewer:
Of course. And thinking about it, 'Mix Johnson' does seem a bit smoother than 'Midge Johnson', though still worse than the conventional titles. Perhaps s/z are just easier than sh/zh in such cases, because they can attach to the next word? My example of "the cat's chat" was genuine: I said that phrase rapidly to myself many times and the assimilation /tstʃ/ -> /tʃtʃ/ did occur, even if it's harder to say.
Victor Mair said,
June 20, 2024 @ 4:53 am
Magus
Merriam-Webster: "The meaning of MAGUS is a member of a hereditary priestly class among the ancient Medes and Persians."
The Magus is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a techno-organic patriarch of an alien civilization. (Wikipedia)
The Magus (1965) is a postmodern novel by British author John Fowles, telling the story of Nicholas Urfe, a young British graduate who is teaching English on a small Greek island. Urfe becomes embroiled in the psychological illusions of a master trickster, which become increasingly dark and serious. (Wikipedia)
Philip Taylor said,
June 20, 2024 @ 5:33 am
maidhc — « How about "Friend" as a universal title ? »— Can be a very unwise move. Inadvertently call someone of a violent disposition "friend" and you may well be informed in no uncertain terms that you are not their friend and would do well to remember that fact …
Robot Therapist said,
June 20, 2024 @ 6:32 am
I guess there must be an interesting history of proposals for "what we ought to say".
Do they ever succeed?
Andrew Usher said,
June 20, 2024 @ 7:53 am
Never alone, I'd think, but if enough people agree on the same 'proposal', things can change. Examples are not rare in these times …
Philip Taylor:
If 'Friend' were the universal title, people wouldn't be offended by it. The unexpectedness is what people react to.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 20, 2024 @ 7:55 am
Robot Therapist,
Gosh, I hope not. What I "ought" to say derives from the lexicon and grammar and idiom of W.Pa. English (within the larger Appalachian dialect continuum) c. 1978. If you want to coax me into Englishing otherwise, you've got a fair bit of convincing to do.
It just doesn't seem natural that people should have to exist in a state of near-constant linguistic hypervigilance for FOMO on whatever happens to be "Rightthink" at the moment.
Benjamin E. Orsatti said,
June 20, 2024 @ 7:56 am
…also, speaking of "friends" (and since we're on a UPenn server!), didn't the Quakers want to call everybody "thou" for awhile? How'd that turn out?
Philip Taylor said,
June 20, 2024 @ 9:51 am
Andrew — « If 'Friend' were the universal title, people wouldn't be offended by it. […] ». But unless the English-speaking world were to agree that "friend" means something other than it does, it could not become the universal title. A patient is not (or is rarely) a friend of his/her g.p., someone checking in to a hotel is rarely a friend of the receptionist, a police officer is rarely (if ever) a friend of the person that he or she is apprehending, so none of these would appreciate being addressed as "friend". "Sir" or "madam" are the preferred terms of address in such circumstances, and that is very unlikely to change (within our lifetime, at least).
David Marjanović said,
June 20, 2024 @ 10:57 am
Yep.
It seems to be impossible over here to become a professor without having a doctorate first; but the doctorate is widely treated as part of the name (lots of people even believe it is!), so it's never left out.
I've only seen people with gender-ambiguous first names do this; and they seem to be switching to "(he/him)".
…or do surgeons in the UK do that?
You mean not as an actual degree?
(There are entire countries where it's simply not possible to begin a doctorate without having a Master degree first.)
Would get you confused with Quakers or perhaps with Yugoslav communists. Also, "you're not my buddy, pal". :-)
Show me a statistical study on this.
Ms. has succeeded.
There do seem to be Americans to whom friend means anybody they know who is not an outright enemy.
J.W. Brewer said,
June 20, 2024 @ 1:20 pm
There is of course in AmEng a vaguely-hostile sense of vocative "friend," used for making threats in a superficially polite fashion. E.g. the Dylan lyric 'And someone says, “You’re in the wrong place, my friend / You better leave.”'
Scott Robinson said,
June 20, 2024 @ 2:12 pm
Original post: https://www.tumblr.com/apolloendymion/750765254114508800/benefits-of-mg-easy-to-pronounce-even-for
Andrew Usher said,
June 20, 2024 @ 10:07 pm
David Marjanovic wrote:
> (There are entire countries where it's simply not possible to begin a doctorate without having a Master degree first.)
Not unknown here, and seems reasonable too. The only issue is that if the master's itself required an involved thesis, it would slow down doctoral students.
> It seems consistently true that when sex is discernible from writing, people always come across as their true biological sex, regardless of 'gender identity' – one more reason to be sceptical of the latter.
> Show me a statistical study on this.
I think you know several reasons there won't be one, so I'll just reply by asking you for a study, showing the contrary. In the absence of any, my judgement is at least as good as anyone's.
> Ms. has succeeded.
Yes, but it was a rather easy change, and actually a simplification. We only dropped one now-silent letter from the traditional title it descended from, and for many Americans there was already no difference in speech. Adding a new form, as this, would be a bigger thing.
Seth said,
June 21, 2024 @ 3:22 am
@ Andrew Usher – Whether "mage" is "in common use" in quite arguable. It's certainly a word widely known among fantasy readers and gamers, which is a substantial number of people, though perhaps not your demographic. A search on Amazon shows it in many book titles. And, for example, here's an article mentioning a gender aspect:
[www.mmorpg.com/news/tarisland-is-breaking-the-gender-lock-chains-with-its-paladin-and-mage-classes-2000131905]
"Today, Tarisland announced the Mage is also a dual-gender class, showing off the Male Mage in today's Twitter post. The Mage, originally shown off last year, brings destructive magic to the table, rounding out any party."
"Mage" is a World Of Warcraft character class, which again, reaches many people. Interesting, the example on the WoW site is female.
https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/game/classes/mage
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2024 @ 3:47 am
[PT] rather as I judge those who sign themselves "Mr" (or "Mr."), then … [/PT]
[DM] I've only seen people with gender-ambiguous first names do this; and they seem to be switching to "(he/him)" [/DM]
Ah, a misunderstanding I think — I was referring not to those who sign themselves (e.g.,) "Leslie Morgan (Mr)" but rather to those who sign themselves as "Mr Leslie Morgan".
David Marjanović said,
June 21, 2024 @ 3:40 pm
Oh no. You make the claim, you provide the evidence.
In fact, if my judgement is as good as anyone's, I don't think it's possible to tell a writer's biological* or social gender from their writings often enough to do statistics with in the first place. That may well have been different as recently as 50 years ago, but now? No chance.
* …also… intersex people exist. With ambiguous genitalia and everything.
Ah, yes. I've only seen the former – which doesn't mean much.
Philip Taylor said,
June 21, 2024 @ 4:28 pm
Herewith one example :
Andrew Usher said,
June 21, 2024 @ 11:25 pm
Seth:
As to 'mage' I was thinking that a word's application to fictional worlds was, by definition, not 'common use'. However, with the existence of games like that, that may be untenable.
Such words are rare, though, I can't think of any outside the fantasy/RPG world that might be considered 'common' yet are almost exclusively used to refer to something acknowledged to lack real existence. Words whose common use is metaphorical, as witch, wizard, zombie, ghost, don't belong in that category.
In any case, if it is in common use, that's yet another reason its proposal as a title is ludicrous; though, contrary to the proposer's explicit statement, there's no doubt that if it were, its pronunciation would be reduced at least to 'midge'. After all 'master' became 'mister' even with the advantage of another syllable to break up the stress.
David Marjanovic:
No, my 'claim' was one referring to my own mental state, of which no evidence can be provided. I can't give you access to my mind. Subjective impressions are part of informal argument, even if they don't meet the highest standard and are normally avoided in academic journals.
I agree, and stated, that it's by no means always possible to tell sex/gender from writing; discussion about when it is would be more than I'd want to get into here. I only applied the 'claim' to those cases where it does seem to be. Intersex conditions are rare enough to be ignored to first order, and their mention was also suppressed for brevity. Remember, this wasn't even the real point – it only came to mind as I realised that if I had to refer to the proposer with a pronoun, I'd automatically use the feminine.
Milan said,
June 22, 2024 @ 6:59 pm
@ J. W. Brewer:
I had a strong suspicion that "magus" and "magister" would ultimately be related and go back to the same Indo-European root. But apparently, you are right. The best guess for "magus" is that it descends form PIE *megʰ- 'to be able to' whereas "magister" comes from *méǵh₂s 'big, great'. The second consonant in the two roots is different: *gʰ vs. *ǵ. Both roots show up in Sanskrit, with different consonants: "maghá" 'riches' from *megʰ- and "maha" 'big, great' from *méǵh₂s (as in "maharaja" 'great king'). It is tempting to speculate that *méǵh₂s and *megʰ- might be related at an earlier stage of PIE not reconstructable by the comparative method, but that's just that: speculation.
Milan said,
June 22, 2024 @ 7:42 pm
@ Gregory Kusnick
>I think it would be interesting if non-binary people coopted Dr in much the same way that gay people coopted the word "gay". They don't need anyone's permission to do it; no government forms would have to be revised. It doesn't have to be "official" (whatever that might mean); it can be just something that people do for themselves.
Whether it's fair or not that academics and physicians get a special honorific, for better or worse it's a convention that we actually have. If other people start using the "Dr." honorific, many people would falsely conclude that they have certain credentials they actually don't have. This would to confusion and perhaps worse. Many continental European countries actually make it a crime to use an academic title without holding a corresponding degree. People using "Dr." as a gender-neutral honorific would have a legal duty to clarify this whenever they do so (e.g. on every business card and every email). As far as I can tell, using a a false title is not in itself a crime in the US or the UK. However, it could easily constitute fraud; for example if a customer/client/investor claims they only chose to work with a "Dr." because they assumed they held a doctoral degree. Perhaps this should all change. But something like "Mx" seems to be a more feasible course. If something more fancy is called for, perhaps "The Honoured" abreviated to "The Hon'd", or just "Hon'd" might do. It resembles honorifics used for nobility in the UK, but it is not actually an established style. ("The Much Honoured" is used for some chiefs in Scotland, "The Honourable" is used all over the UK.)
Victor Mair said,
June 22, 2024 @ 8:24 pm
Dr. J
And we meant it with respect and admiration.
Anthea Fleming said,
June 23, 2024 @ 5:30 am
Re David Marjanovic's comment- Hotile use of 'friend'.
Some care must be used in Australia with the use of 'mate' to strangers. "Watch it, mate!" is quite likely to start something.
Philip Taylor said,
June 23, 2024 @ 8:54 am
I cannot help but feel that "Watch it, <any vocative>" is "quite likely to start something" in most Anglophone environments …
Milan said,
June 23, 2024 @ 5:21 pm
@Philip Taylor,
"Watch it, my lady", I think will mostly startle rather than start anything.
Jonathan Smith said,
June 24, 2024 @ 2:04 am
Re: "Dr.", while Ph.D. "Dr."s already annoy M.D. "Dr."s in U.S. hospital halls, AFAIK serious incidents have thus far been avoided… so the confusion concern may be overblown. Tho maybe simply "Doc" is even better… folksy, friendly, and vaguer as to literal credential.
Re: gender neutral "Xiansheng", cf. use of "Laoshi" in parts of e.g. Shandong, P.R.C., which causes outsiders to respond "… I'm not a teacher" or more funnily "…How did you know I was a teacher?"