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In an attempt to blaze a trail here, I am going to keep a civil tongue in my head for the rest of this post. I suggest that the excitable kittens attempt to do likewise, involving subject though this clearly is.
Now, to the purpose.
I think you know that "lady" has a wheelbarrow-full of meanings that "woman" doesn't. And few to do with age.
Um...I meant the age of the term, not the age of the woman. Thus, an individual who would generally have been referred to as, say, a young lady, or a lady of the parish forty years ago would now more probably be referred to as a young woman; the term "lady" as the default term to describe what we would now generally call a woman is an archaism. Does that make the point clearer? Just as the term "velocipede" is no longer chosen to describe forms of transport powered by the rider's pedalling (although the bicycle and the velocipede are, as you correectly point out, not identical pieces of technology).
Now, "Ms" is not the same thing as "Mrs" or "Miss", in the sense that they are different words. However, were they applied to, say, a 68-year old man from Boise, Idaho, they would seem inappropriate. As a term, "Ms" can be applied to people who could also be appropriately described by "Miss" or "Mrs", although not by both simultaneously. Therefore, in one sense "Ms" does not appear to need to exist, as anybody who could be described as "Ms" could also be described as either Mrs or Miss.
(Incidentally, this is what I mean by "Head Shop, Ignatius..." It is traditional to explain your contention, rather than simply saying "No, that's not true. Frequently I do apparently not explain carefully enough, which this post is an attempt to correct)
However, at some point, just as at some point "lady" ceased to be considered a universally adequate descriptor for a female, at some point "Mrs" and "Miss" became not in themselves sufficient to describe the entirety of womanhood, divided between those who were married and those who were not. This may have been a consequence of the women's movement criticising the allocation of titles according to whether a person was married or not. It may also have been because, as women began to marry later or not at all, some were less happy about having a title which suggested youth and inexperience - whereas a man ceased to be a "Master" and became a "Mister" (the title "Master" falling largely into disuse) automatically, a 43-year old unmarried corporate lawyer might get a bit bored of having the same title as her friends' daughters. Also, the availability of divorce may have played a part - when very few people did divorce, it was less of an issue, but what do you call somebody who was married but is not anymore? If widowed, the answer would be "Mrs", I believe, but would the same rules apply to divorce?
So, these are all possible sources of the introduction of the term "Ms", which now functions as a title for women that does not tie into narratives of hebescence or ownership as "Miss" and "Mrs" might be perceived to. It is also, as it happens, a convenient way to address people if you do not know whether they would prefer to be referred to as "Miss", "Mrs" or "Ms", as it does not have the same weight as "Mrs" or "Miss".
"Ms" now exists, as an alternative to "Miss" or "Ms" which does not reference marital status, as it seems from your researches that "ze" does as an alternative to "he" or "she" that does not reference gender, whether that is because the gender of the subject gender is unclear or irrelevant to the person using the term (a sense that may overlap with the generic "they"), or because the subject does not feel that "he" or "she" adequately describes their relationship to gender, as some women might feel that they do not *want* to be known as Miss or Mrs because they do not feel that they satisafctorily describe their relationship with matrimony.
So, I wanted to hang fire until I understood why you had chosen to reject those examples. I'm afraid that I think you were not looking at the original statement diachronically, and as such your response did not seem to addresss my intended meaning. Clearly I was at fault for not making this clear enough, and I hope the explanation above makes things more comprehensible.
This hopefully also covers:
if you pretend we are only talking about replacing he/she. But we're not. You know this.
And now it seems we are talking about ze/hir being useful in certain circumstances, on this board or in text. Forgive me, but I thought we were talking about its universal adoption. The previous thread was more specific, granted.
I assume that the first sentence means "replacing the phrase 'he/she'", rather than "replacing the pronouns 'he' and 'she'", a truly momentous task. If so, then no. I would suggest that some might prefer an epicene pronoun aesthetically to "he/she", or might feel that it better describes a generic individual ("The passenger is reminded to keep a close eye on his/her personal belongings")whose gender is irrelevant, as it does not reference gender whereas "he/she" draws attention doubly to gender. However, I would suggest that there are other situations in which an epicene pronoun could also be useful, as stated above and no doubt restated below when I get onto LLBIMG.
Grant: I'm going to slip you in here because it ties in to some of the other uses; I did mention Merriam-Webster's notion of the notionally plural singular, and your example of the "singular 'they'" is in fact such a notionally plural entity - "everybody". A "singular 'they'" would follow a form more like "If I could find one person who knew how to dig wells, they would be worth their weight in gold" - where I would suggest "they" leaves the sense slightly dubious (wells being plural) and the epicene pronoun would actually be less confusing, but ultimately "they" seems a reasonable choice, especially in everyday speech where, as has been observed, epicene pronouns would probably take some getting used to in many cases.
Right, back to Ignatius:
And now it seems we are talking about ze/hir being useful in certain circumstances, on this board or in text. Forgive me, but I thought we were talking about its universal adoption. The previous thread was more specific, granted
Actually, this thread is more specific. It is guided by its topic abstract, which reads The use, or not, of coinings such as "ze" or "hir" in language, what it is intended to achieve and whether it is advisable or desirable. That, specifically, is what we are discussing. It seems perfectly likely that part of that discussion might be where it may be more or less advisable or desirable to use the epicene pronoun. LLBIMG is quite right, for example, to say that using it to a group of people, be they factory workers in Detroit or b) other, who do not use it, just as it would be unwise to use the word "rubicund" if you had a pretty good idea that the person you were talking to had no idea what it meant. This strikes me as entirely within the bounds of the topic abstract.
If you feel the topic abstract is incorrect, please contact a moderator- Head Shop mods can alter topic abstracts. I'd be happy to look at this myself.
Right. Let me just post this and see what else has cropped up since. |
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