seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (09/22/83)
Ah yes, the question of Miss/Mrs/Ms. Let us examine why 'Ms' came into being. Apparently many women object to reveiling their marital status via Miss/Mrs. Thus 'Ms' came into being. Yes, yes, very businesslike, very impersonal, it says, "my marital status and any other personal information is strictly off limits." But why is this desirable? Is it to keep things cold and impersonal, at a distance? Is it to prevent discrimination based on marital status? If the purpose is to keep things cold and impersonal, I suggest that the world is cold and impersonal enough already, let's not add to it. If the purpose is to prevent discrimination based on marital status, why not attack the problem at its source? The complaint is sometimes heard, "but men don't have to reveil *their* marital status, 'Ms' is equivalent to 'Mr'." Rather than reducing information by using 'Ms', why not increase information by inventing a married/unmarried pair for males. Perhaps Mister/Master could be used. *** disclaimer *** This may sound like 'Ms' is a favorite pet peeve of mine. Its not. I *prefer* Miss/Mrs, but am not upset by Ms. Rational discussion invited. Dave Seifert (single) ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
engels@ihuxs.UUCP (SME) (09/22/83)
I've been addressed as Miss, Mrs, Mr, and Ms. I prefer Ms. This is *not* cold and impersonal. In dealings of all sorts(ie. business, bills, etc.), my marital status has nothing to do with the reason for the correspondance. Therefore, why should it be used? Sue Engels (marital status none of your business) BTL-Naperville
ignatz@ihuxx.UUCP (Dave Ihnat, Chicago, IL) (09/23/83)
Mister/*Master*???? Oh, my. Oh, my, oh, my. I'm glad I'm not *you*. I can't wait to hear what comes out of this... Dave Ihnat ihuxx!ignatz
kmw@iheds.UUCP (Kathy Wilber) (09/23/83)
References: <384@ihuxs.UUCP> Of the titles Ms., Mrs., Miss, and Mr., all of which have been used to refer to me, I much prefer Ms. Given my choice, I prefer no title at all. The original article asked if not disclosing marital status was intended to be cold and impersonal. No more so than not preceding your name by a list of your hobies and political affiliations. In fact, the latter practice would give more "warm, personal" information than Mrs. or Miss. How about following a format similar to the personal ads?: GWMBkPkr J. D. Doe (gay white male backpacker) SBSci-Fi X. James (straight black female science-fiction lover) BiJR-RMEE P. Dunn (bisexual Jewish right-wing Rebublican male electrical engineer) The point is, that sort of personal information is something you give to people WHEN YOU WANT THEM TO KNOW IT. Marital status is not relevent to the vast majority of day to day interactions. It doesn't matter to your employer, your co-workers, your bank, the phone company, the store or gas station reading your credit card, etc., etc. Why announce personal information? And why, of all possible aspects of your personal life, announce marital status? By the way, one of the big reasons for the acceptance of "Ms." was women's desire to avoid discrimination based on marital status. Such discrimination was legal not too long ago, and it continued even after it became (in most cases) illegal. (Case in point: A woman I know, hired several years ago, recounts her "welcome to the company" meeting with her department head on her first day of work. It was going fine until he noticed her engagement ring. He got angry, and demanded to know if she had been wearing the ring during her interviews. Implication: if the interviewers knew she was soon going to be married, they shouldn't have hired her.) The same arguments apply to using any titles at all (Ms., Mr.). If someone is close enough to you that your sex becomes relevent, that person had better not need to read your name to find out which sex you are! Kathy Wilber (iheds!kmw)
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (09/23/83)
RE: Master/Mister OK Dave, I looked up 'master' in the dictionary (Webster's New Collegiate), and it says: ...3 a (1) *archaic* : MR. (2): a youth or boy too young to be called *mister* ---used as a title ... My idea was to revive this word and use it as a male equivalent to 'Miss', that is, an unmarried male. (This would require eliminating the age distinction.) 'Mr' could then be used for married males, equivalent to 'Mrs'. One slight problem, definition 2 f (1) *dial* : HUSBAND oh well... -------------------- I have received some replies to my article, and a related topic has come up. Lately it has become popular for women to keep their maiden name upon marriage. Another option is the hyphenated name. Let's get some discussion going on the pros/cons of these options. I don't personally know of any cases where the guy changed his name to match hers, but that's one more possibility. ------------------- It was also pointed out that I misspelled 'reviel', should be 'reveal'. Sorry, but the 'spelltell' program didn't know how to spell it either, and I didn't have a dictionary. 'Herr' David A. Seifert ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (09/23/83)
If another person's marital status is important to you you should ask them.
There's no need for a person's title to announce their marital status, age,
sexual preference, quest, or favorite color. I don't see how it adds a
personal touch; the purpose is not to be impersonal but to be able to identify
yourself without identifying your marital status (there was no such convention
for males, so "Ms." was invented so women wouldn't have to identify themselves
with a title which implied marital status). In non-personal dealings (i.e.
business dealings) marital status should be irrelevant, and in personal dealings
you can always ask - or, better yet, wait for the other person to mention the
fact in passing ("the last time my spouse and I went to Barbados...").
Guy Harris
{seismo,mcnc,we13,brl-bmd,allegra}!rlgvax!guymadrid@auvax (09/24/83)
Why don't we get really descriptive, then. What about a form of address
that would indicate marital status, parental status, sexual orientation
(if any), tax bracket, type of toothpaste preferred ....
As I see it, the only use to forms of address is to indicate to the
listener that we are being polite. Perhaps, in the best of all
possible worlds, a "you, to-whom-I-am-being-polite" would serve.
R.
!alberta!auvax!madridmason@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Mason) (09/24/83)
I always thought I should be called Master Mason before marriage,
but after a while realized it the obvious connotations if you change
the M to m. I think marital status has 0 relevance at any time other
than spouse-hunting, and I don't think work is the right place for that.
-- Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRG,
{cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!mason
or {decvax,linus,research}!utzoo!utcsrgv!mason (UUCP)twltims@watmath.UUCP (Tracy Tims) (09/25/83)
I have never felt that a woman who uses "Ms." is being impersonal. I simply see it as the non-inclusion of a non-relevant detail. Do you see "Mr." as being impersonal? Changing to a "Mr/Master" title is a regressive step. Marital status is generally non-relevant. Where it is relevant people can be explicit. I think a positive step would be to have a generic title for people. No reason to give bigots all sorts of additional hooks into people's lives. I suspect that the reason those hooks exist is to facilitate bigotry in the first place. Tracy Tims watmath!twltims The University of Waterloo formerly hcr!tracy Human Computing Resources Corporation
bentson@csu-cs.UUCP (09/25/83)
r (maybe they have an entry for intransigent?). I'd like to suggest that everyone be on guard to this archaic behavior (theirs, that is. I'd like to think that my behavior was appropriate.) when dealing with these systems (agent+computer). As Arlo Guthrie put it, "If everyone....". Randy Bentson csu-cs!bentson Colo State U - Comp Sci
bev@hlexa.UUCP (Beverly Dyer) (09/26/83)
I've always maintained that women over the age of whatever(12 - 18) should just use Mrs. Forget the Miss, Ms. stuff. I do it myself and I'm not married. I think its a much better solution than cooking up another address for unmarried males. Beverly -- Beverly Dyer HL 2E212 x2279 hlexa!bev
ariels@tekecs.UUCP (Ariel Shattan) (09/26/83)
Re: Man changing name upon marriage I had some friends who got married, and who decided to come up with a new last name for both of them (symbol of their new life together, and also, they had both had unhappy marriages before and wanted to start really fresh). She had no problem getting her credit cards and bank accounts changed. HE, however, had to scream "SEX DISCRIMINATION" at the top of his lungs before the card companies, etc would change his info. Speaking of banks, I have a friend who is changing back to her "maiden" (so ridiculous to call it that these days, how many women are 'maidens' at the time of marriage?) name after an ugly marriage, and the bank wont accept the change until the divorce is final. Ariel Shattan
arwhite@watdaisy.UUCP (Alex White) (09/26/83)
I am tired of this discussion, what I want to know is why does it matter what sex you are, let alone what marital status? Why Mr/Ms? Why any stupid honourific at all? (Not Mr.) Alex White
mason@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Mason) (09/27/83)
R. suggests "you, to-whom-I-am-being-polite" which seems a little stuffy.
How about "Politely Regarded", abbreviated to Pr. Dave Mason or for
exceptional people: "Highly Regarded", abbr. Hr. Dave Mason?
-- Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRG,
{cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!mason
or {decvax,linus,research}!utzoo!utcsrgv!mason (UUCP)mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (09/28/83)
=============== As I see it, the only use to forms of address is to indicate to the listener that we are being polite. Perhaps, in the best of all possible worlds, a "you, to-whom-I-am-being-polite" would serve. =============== We might be learning more from the Japanese, then, than just how to make 5th generation computers and silly radios :-). They have lots of forms of "you, to-whom-I-am-being-polite" depending on who "you" are and who "I" am -- whether it is polite by condescension, by necessity (or "I" might get my head chopped off) and so forth. I like the idea of just "M. Smith". Who cares whether the person is male or female if the matters under discussion are just business? If this is confusable with "Malcolm Smith" or "Marylin Smith", why not use "Mx. Smith" instead. Mx might be less explosive. There might be a problem in how to pronounce Mx. If Ms is Mizz, perhaps Mx is Mix. I don't think I like that. "Maestre" sound better, and could be imagined to be some kind of Kultivated version of Master or Mistress, just as are Mr, Miss, Mrs, and Ms. Mx. M. Taylor
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (09/28/83)
I went to school with a guy named Graeme Bate. Understandably,
he preferred *not* to be called Master. (Actually, his father,
Derek Bate, was the vice-principal of the school.)
Dave Sherman
--
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!davepreece@uicsl.UUCP (09/30/83)
#R:ihuxl:-60500:uicsl:16400023:000:723 uicsl!preece Sep 30 00:52:00 1983 I am tired of this discussion, what I want to know is why does it matter what sex you are, let alone what marital status? Why Mr/Ms? Why any stupid honourific at all? ---------- It shouldn't make any difference what sex the addressee is, in most cases, but we don't have a sex-free honorific. The honorific is useful mostly in cases where you don't know the person you're writing to; it makes the salutation less abrupt without trampling on the recipient's propriety. "Dear John Smith" sounds wrong (like a computer-generated letter), "Dear John" is presumptious if you don't know him, so "Dear Mr. Smith" provides a middle ground. It would be nice to have a gender-free version, but we don't, so we're stuck with it.
rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/07/83)
MASTER!???!!!! Come on! That word has more meanings than just a title. I don't want any man to be my 'master' like I'm his 'missus' (Mrs.) or 'mistress'. I can't believe you even suggested that. Of course, as a man I suppose you wouldn't mind being 'Master Doe.' Sheesh! - rene
rene@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/07/83)
I'm sorry about the lateness of my response - I didn't realize HOW behind I was in net.women (over a 100!!) I replied to a message suggesting mister/master to go with miss/mrs as opposed to ms. Anyway, sorry for the late flame. - rene