worryingly jolly batman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
labellementeuse) wrote2009-11-16 03:37 pm
labellementeuse) wrote2009-11-16 03:37 pm
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1. "I think it's a kiwi." "Don't they only live in Australia or New Zealand?" *sob*
2. On "Ms." Not the magazine, the title. If I could make one single absolute change to the world, it would probably be Ms. Mrs. would be gone and Miss would be like Master - on the way out. I know that is a pretty bourgeois English-speaking problem, and obviously I could say, end poverty, hunger, violence. But I think those things are symptoms, not the disease, ad I think curing the disease is going to take more than one change. So: Ms.
Here are some of the things I think about Ms.
"Miss" implies this: You're a woman. You're unmarried. You probably don't have dependents and in fact might be dependent upon others. You're probably young = naive, and/or young = irresponsible, and/or young = don't need promotions/careers instead of jobs/pay raises.
"Mrs." implies this: You're a heterosexual woman. You're married. You're dependent (or codependent) upon others. You also have a good chance of having dependents, who might cause you to take time off work to go pick them up from school, look after them when they're sick, etc. This means you probably shouldn't get responsibilities in case you can't fulfill them because of that, even though you are more responsible than that Miss. You're dependent so you probably don't need that pay raise.
"Mr." implies this: You're a man and you're an adult.
Why would you let people who know, potentially, nothing about you than your name have all that extra information about you?
And these are only the most practical, boring reasons. For reasons that actually make me angry, check out a person paper on purity in language.
2. On "Ms." Not the magazine, the title. If I could make one single absolute change to the world, it would probably be Ms. Mrs. would be gone and Miss would be like Master - on the way out. I know that is a pretty bourgeois English-speaking problem, and obviously I could say, end poverty, hunger, violence. But I think those things are symptoms, not the disease, ad I think curing the disease is going to take more than one change. So: Ms.
Here are some of the things I think about Ms.
"Miss" implies this: You're a woman. You're unmarried. You probably don't have dependents and in fact might be dependent upon others. You're probably young = naive, and/or young = irresponsible, and/or young = don't need promotions/careers instead of jobs/pay raises.
"Mrs." implies this: You're a heterosexual woman. You're married. You're dependent (or codependent) upon others. You also have a good chance of having dependents, who might cause you to take time off work to go pick them up from school, look after them when they're sick, etc. This means you probably shouldn't get responsibilities in case you can't fulfill them because of that, even though you are more responsible than that Miss. You're dependent so you probably don't need that pay raise.
"Mr." implies this: You're a man and you're an adult.
Why would you let people who know, potentially, nothing about you than your name have all that extra information about you?
And these are only the most practical, boring reasons. For reasons that actually make me angry, check out a person paper on purity in language.
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Also, hahaha, I love that paper, although I'm pretty certain it's aimed at laypeople--talk about language purity to a linguist and they turn their nose up at you and call you a prescriptivist.
(...that's another one: I want it to be acceptable to use "they" in the singular. The usage has a long history! I do not understand why we persist in insisting it's wrong. English needs a gender-neutral third person singular that isn't disrespectful.)
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It is acceptable! The OED says so!1
1For certain editions of the OED.
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I kind of don't like "they", but I agree that introducing a gender-neutral pronoun would be good (and as China said, it is generally acceptable, I think.) Because I don't like "they" and am too nervous to use "zie", I usually go for "she".
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Also, that bird looks nothing like a kiwi, what the hell?