<p>Really liking “yee.”</p>
<p>Thank you, skrlvr! I recall one of my professors mentioning that there was historical precedent for using they as a singular, but I couldn’t remember the specifics.</p>
<p>On a related topic, thank doG for Ms. I vividly remember the difficulty of attempting to write a formal letter to a female whose marital status was unknown!</p>
<p>I love it when I have the option (on ticket sites and such) to pick from a long list of honorifics. I skip right over “Ms.” whenever I have the chance. A few weeks ago I got a flyer from a local theatre company that was addressed to Lady Absweetmarie.</p>
<p>I like Ms. I’m certainly not young, so Miss sounds wrong, and I am not Mrs. as I did not take my H’s name. Ms. is somewhere in between so it works for me, but I really prefer just First Name, Last Name as that’s who I am.</p>
<p>I noticed that “the scream queen” & the director of SpinalTap can now be addressed
Lord & Lady Haden -Guest.
I love it.</p>
<p>I’m trying to write to admissions people right now and I can never figure out their titles. I am worried about offending someone if I call them Mr/Ms and they turn out to be Dr. I also have come across two people with gender neutral names (I think one was Jordan, the other was an Asian name that google said was a surname… sigh…). I spend more time trying to figure out how to address it than the email itself. I wish we could just move to all first names or some generic title + last name. It would make life so much easier -.- lol</p>
<p>I hate being called Miss X. It just bugs me. I’m not sure why. I much prefer Ms. (if they insist on using my last name… which I don’t prefer) and I will always be Ms. (or maybe, one day, Dr. )</p>
<p>In the old days, romani, a proper greeting was “Dear Sir or Madam”</p>
<p>Titles can be annoying. In formal situations, my parents are Mr and Mrs. Dad’s Full Name, which is kind of annoying. I will probably be Ms. Victoriaheidi forever, even though I don’t really like “Ms.”</p>
<p>Young, I had never thought of that. Wow. </p>
<p>I look at old letters written to my library and they’re all addressed to dear sirs despite our all female staff at the time</p>
<p>I was looking through some old letters in files at my work yesterday, and found one with the greeting “Gentlemen:”. I think our staff was mostly female at the time as well.</p>
<p>We have a database at work and we get information from people that we add to it and it always surprises me when a woman with children lists her title as Miss and not Ms. (I think these women are unmarried).</p>
<p>A practical reason for women to use honorifics such as Miss or Mrs. that identify marital status is to prevent men from inadvertently pursuing married women.</p>
<p>And the equally practical reason for not having equivalent male honorifics was what? Making certain the women you were pursuing couldn’t tell if you were married?</p>
<p>Nice try, Beliavsky, but almost certainly wrong, since your theory doesn’t account for the use of Mrs. by divorced and widowed women, and also for the fact that if a male got close enough for meaningful pursuit he could probably notice a woman’s wedding ring or lack thereof. More likely the honorific indicated whether a woman was sui juris (or subject to a husband’s control) or subject to her father’s control.</p>
<p>And yet women seem to have no problem… So I call crap.</p>
<p>romani, you can call the admissions receptionist (receptionperson- or plain ol’ reception)) and ask. Many with PhDs (in my neck of the woods) don’t stand on the formality of “Dr.” </p>
<p>And, in France and Germany, past a certain age, all women get the “Mrs” equivalent. </p>
<p>My issue with “Mrs John Doe” is that the woman’s identity is-- nowhere, except her role as his wife. Any string of women could fit that. But, I do follow whatever an older woman is most comfortable with, per her generation and likes.</p>
<p>Btw not sure a Biblical reworking, during translation, convinces me. Yee is Ye or You (sing/plu) while they is plural.</p>
<p>And in Germany, fraulein, while meaning an unmarried female, is more commonly used to mean girl, and is used less often to mean unmarried female(at age 25 for example).</p>
<p>In a sense, much like using “girl” here to refer to what many call a young woman. My wife says there is an age where “girl” doesn’t fit. She says in the approx 25 to 35, a female may still be establishing herself in many ways, and might be insulted to be referred to as a girl. Wife says after 40, most women are confident enough that “girl” doesn’t insult them, and in fact often flatters them. And of course the familiarity with the individual makes a difference too. Her opinion! Don’t blame me!</p>
<p>I would say that *M</p>
<p>I never got why “it” refers to babies and dogs.</p>
<p>Vonlost, if you need a rest from Tday preps, here’s one to chew on. <a href=“http://blog.assarbad.net/20090810/das-madchen-why-is-it-grammatically-neutral/[/url]”>http://blog.assarbad.net/20090810/das-madchen-why-is-it-grammatically-neutral/</a>
Doesn’t explain das Baby or das Hund.</p>
<p>I have always used “Ms.”. It is no one’s business if I am married or not. I also often use s/he.</p>
<p>[Caleb</a> Rossiter: How Washington, D.C., Schools Cheat Their Students Twice - WSJ.com](<a href=“Caleb Rossiter: How Washington, D.C., Schools Cheat Their Students Twice - WSJ”>Caleb Rossiter: How Washington, D.C., Schools Cheat Their Students Twice - WSJ)</p>
<p>The dirty little secret of American education is that not only do half of students in high-poverty high schools drop out, but most of those who graduateas I found in my two years teaching and testing studentsoperate at about the fifth-grade level in academics, organization and behavior. These graduates must then take noncredit remedial courses should they try to go to college.</p>
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<p>The author is a high school math teacher in Washington D.C.</p>