Many people find it demeaning to address women differently depending on whether or not they are married, especially when we don't do the same for men.

She insisted they get my surname only. So that's what they have.

Notably, both my (now ex) wives insisted on taking my last name. I didn’t really care either way.

I was always taught it was 'Master' for unmarried and young men.

I remember when I was a kid, bank correspondence would address me as MASTER. I found it amusing.

I don’t think they do that anymore though??? I think our son has always been MR to them, even when he was a 5 year old

But when Mrs first stood for Mistress, the word Mistress wasn't "loaded" at all.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/mistress

Only in English.

If an abbreviation is never expanded, is it still an abbreviation? Personally I think it isn’t; I advocate for condensing i.e./e.g. to simply ie and eg, though this is a minority opinion.

> [Ms. is] intended as a default form of address for women regardless of marital status. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms.

Wikipedia tries to make it sound like it’s some old tradition, but it’s actually fairly new, with the prior historical references being obscure until it was resurrected.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/insider/1986-ms-joins-the...

I don’t understand this need to rewrite history. Nobody in this thread is objecting to the use of the term.

I don’t understand this need to rewrite history. Nobody in this thread is objecting to the use of the term.

Skeletor will return next week with more disturbing reminders about passage of time...

The term is recent in a linguistic sense. Even if you personally think it’s ancient history, there are plenty of us alive where it was invented in our lifetime.

What was that all about if you both perfectly agree on the timeline?

> Classy edit, btw.

Edit? I did not edit my post. I think you may not understand what that means. It is neither classy nor unclassy, it is a type of meme.

I am the parent of the thread. It's all me.

It's simply a fact that the term was revived in the 70s and popularized in the 80s.

Given the magnitude of more recent shifts in language around equity, 50 years is ancient.

Okay, then. Good luck with that.

Deftly convincing my rhetorical opponent of my youthful vigor by misunderstanding what they wrote and getting noticeably worked up about being called ‘ancient’

More to the point, what’s the median human lifespan, in first-world countries? (average lifespan in the US is almost 80)

I don’t know what to call this, but none of the words that come to mind are positive.

You could have avoided the issue entirely by using clearer language like "in the last 40 years."

The idea that I was claiming things older than me are "irrelevant" is nowhere near orbit of anything I wrote.

I hope your day looks up.

Gloria Steinem cofounded Ms. Magazine in the early 70s which helped popularize it further.

Anyway, how old are you that well over half a century is “fairly new” to you? Do you still wear galoshes and use a mimeograph?

“It is generally considered polite to address a woman by Ms. rather than Mrs., unless the preference of the woman in question is clearly known. This is especially true in written communication, as dictated by professional etiquette.”

There was such a huge push to convert all `master` branches to `main`[1], yet feminists have no issues addressing each other as master/mistress.

I'm not a native speaker, but in my experience, people don't even talk like that anyway. Newspapers may write "Mr Trump" but people just say Trump.

[1]: Not me, I still use `master`.

But as we all know, the US is all that matters, so you may as well state outright that it “is so”, and move on.

Hm. Weird. Never seen that before. Let's check the source, emilypost.com:

>Mx. Is the universal title that can be used by anyone. It is gender non-identifying. Even if you identify specifically with a gender you may still use Mx. and you may see Mx. used when the sender is unaware of your title.

https://emilypost.com/advice/guide-to-addressing-corresponde...

OK, im out. I'm immediately out.

This is taught to children in the United States. I didn't go to an especially good school and I remember it to this day. If you're not from the US the custom may be different.

Perhaps you will consider the advice from Grammarly [0] as a more acceptable source.

[0] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/commonly-confused-words/ms-mr...

No doubt, in today's absurdly woke school system.

there is woman,

and there is Klinefelter's.

(worth the karma hit)

Miss indicated that a woman was unmarried. Mrs indicated that she was. Ms was added to behave like Mr in that it doesn't indicate marital status.

Especially in a business context, it would be unprofessional to ask if a woman is married or not merely for determining which title to use. Unless you want to have an affair with her, of course.

Once that's in place, I would feel better about the use of Mrs.

https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm...

While I'm at it, I don't see how "miss" can be more respectful than "mistress" when the former is a clipping of the latter, so a miss is less than a mistress.

Because she is about to be single?