>> >And here I thought I'd found a place where people were interested in >> >discussing the use and nuances of the English language.
>> obaue: ". . . use and nuances of . . ." Is that "of" really strong >enough to do >> double duty here? Something doesn't seem quite right. "Use" seems to >resent >> being separated from its "of." It's only a poor little verb-noun, and >it can't >> hold its own against the full-fledged noun "nuances" in the tug-o'-war >for that >> "of." Or something.
>I read and re-read the sentence in question, and for the life of me, I >don't see a thing wrong with it. The wording and structure of it seems >perfect to me.
OK. Must be me.
obaue: ". . . and for the life of me, I . . ." Who thinks you have to either lose the comma or add one after "and?" "Seems" or "seem?" I like "seem."
Perchprism (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
]> ]>> >And here I thought I'd found a place where people were interested in ]>> >discussing the use and nuances of the English language. ]> ]>> obaue: ". . . use and nuances of . . ." Is that "of" really strong ]>enough to do ]>> double duty here? Something doesn't seem quite right. "Use" seems to ]>resent ]>> being separated from its "of." It's only a poor little verb-noun, and ]>it can't ]>> hold its own against the full-fledged noun "nuances" in the tug-o'-war ]>for that ]>> "of." Or something. ]> ]>I read and re-read the sentence in question, and for the life of me, I ]>don't see a thing wrong with it. The wording and structure of it seems ]>perfect to me. ] ] OK. Must be me.
Drgnwng's sentence seems fine to me, too.
] obaue: ] ". . . and for the life of me, I . . ." Who thinks you have to either lose the ] comma or add one after "and?"
Yeah, what Perchprism said. Either one of those. But adding the comma means promoting the comma after "question" to a semicolon (and losing the other one instead doesn't). In the pause-marker school of punctuation, the sentence may be okay as it stands.
] "Seems" or "seem?" I like "seem."
"Seem" is the correct one, but the "it" before it is getting in the way, transforming the sentence as if by magic to "It seems perfect to me, the wording and structure of it. So it sounds okay as it stands, incorrectness notwithstanding.
] In article <Pine.GSO.3.96.990425113859.15522A-100...@is9.nyu.edu>, ] Richard Fontana <rf...@is9.nyu.edu> wrote: ]> Interestingly, though, ]> they generally pronounced "Ms" like "Miss" even though it was clear that ]> they meant to use "Ms". I think I have noticed this tendency to pronounce ]> "Ms" like "Miss" several other speakers of various ages. I wonder if it ]> is due to early familiarity with "Miss" or if the terminal 'z' sound in ]> "Ms" is for some reason more difficult to say than the voiceless sound in ]> "Miss" (though the same people have no problem pronouncing "Mrs", etc.). ] ] Is the vowel used by USAns in 'Ms' always the same as that in 'Miss'?
Yes, definitely, though the one in "Ms." may be a skosh longer. Guessing at ASCII IPA, I'd say maybe [mIs] for "Miss" and [mI:z] for "Ms." (which in turn is close to the way "Mrs." can be pronounced in the southeast USA, though that may lean more toward [mI:z:] or [mI:zz] or ['mIz@z] (still guessing at the ASCII IPA).
] In ] common, I think, with a lot of people on this side, the vowel I use is schwa.
On Sun, 25 Apr 1999, Chris Stokes wrote: > Is the vowel used by USAns in 'Ms' always the same as that in 'Miss'? In > common, I think, with a lot of people on this side, the vowel I use is schwa.
I have always heard Ms spoken as /mIz/ or (as noted in my previous posting) /mIs/ .
>My children now have teachers who are known as "Miss X" or "Mrs. Y" >or "Ms. Z". I would definitely assume that those in the first group >are all unmarried and that those in the second group are all married >or at least were once married. I can make no assumptions about those >in the third group.
>nancy g.
The odds are that, while believing there is still some meaning left to the Norman legal definition of a married woman, -- femme couverte -- and while even wearing a wedding ring, the "Ms Z" group feels that marital status is nobody else's business in a school environment or anywhere else. The odds are also good that indeed nobody is interested. But you are right. Motivation is a mystery, perhaps the only one left.
> ] Skitt wrote: > ]>From: "Skitt" <sk...@i.am> > ]>Date: 4/24/99 9:57 AM Eastern Daylight Time > ]>Message-id: <7fsiil$b5...@fir.prod.itd.earthlink.net> > ]> > ]> > ]>Perchprism <perchpr...@aol.com> wrote in message > ]>news:19990423172438.26331.00000770@ng-fs1.aol.com... > ]>> Drgnwng wrote: > ]> > ]>> >And here I thought I'd found a place where people were interested in > ]>> >discussing the use and nuances of the English language. > ]> > ]>> obaue: ". . . use and nuances of . . ." Is that "of" really strong > ]>enough to do > ]>> double duty here? Something doesn't seem quite right. "Use" seems to > ]>resent > ]>> being separated from its "of." It's only a poor little verb-noun, and > ]>it can't > ]>> hold its own against the full-fledged noun "nuances" in the tug-o'-war > ]>for that > ]>> "of." Or something. > ]> > ]>I read and re-read the sentence in question, and for the life of me, I > ]>don't see a thing wrong with it. The wording and structure of it seems > ]>perfect to me. > ] > ] OK. Must be me.
> Drgnwng's sentence seems fine to me, too.
> ] obaue: > ] ". . . and for the life of me, I . . ." Who thinks you have to either lose the > ] comma or add one after "and?"
> Yeah, what Perchprism said. Either one of those. But adding the comma > means promoting the comma after "question" to a semicolon (and losing the > other one instead doesn't). In the pause-marker school of punctuation, > the sentence may be okay as it stands.
I almost put the comma after the "and", but since I have been accused of using too many commas, I left it out, so as not to separate that one word from the rest of the phrase. There's no way that I would lose the one after "me".
> ] "Seems" or "seem?" I like "seem."
> "Seem" is the correct one, but the "it" before it is getting in the way, > transforming the sentence as if by magic to "It seems perfect to me, the > wording and structure of it. So it sounds okay as it stands, > incorrectness notwithstanding.
Hmm, sounded right to me at the time I wrote it. I handled the "wording and structure" as a unit, but I see the other side also. Oh, well. -- Skitt (a Leftpondian) http://come.to/skitt/ ... and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.
This group will either drive you not care or drive you to excrutiating self-conciousness or drive you to seek a convention and stick to it, eh?
P. S. -- Be of good cheer; the rains will return as they always have, but don't forget to unplug the computer during thunderstorms. Winter makes us lax in that regard.
Perchprism (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
>>My children now have teachers who are known as "Miss X" or "Mrs. Y" >>or "Ms. Z". I would definitely assume that those in the first group >>are all unmarried and that those in the second group are all married >>or at least were once married. I can make no assumptions about those >>in the third group.
>>nancy g.
>The odds are that, while believing there is still some meaning >left to the Norman legal definition of a married woman, -- femme >couverte -- and while even wearing a wedding ring, the "Ms Z" >group feels that marital status is nobody else's business in a >school environment or anywhere else. The odds are also good that >indeed nobody is interested. But you are right. Motivation is a >mystery, perhaps the only one left.
Careful -- they may tell you.
Perchprism (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
nancy g. <nan...@tiac.net> wrote: >geoff butler wrote:
>> In my younger schooldays, well before the invention of "Ms", it was >> normal for all female teachers to be addressed as "Miss". Even then, >> though, I think it might have been specific to that environment.
>Others in this thread have said similar things. Since it's not >always possible to tell from someone's headers where they are >posting from, I can't tell whether or not my feeling about this >is correct -- but I strongly suspect that it's a crossPondian >difference, and that those who used "Miss" for their teachers >without knowing their marital status were all attending schools >in the U.K. Could anyone who remembers calling all teacher "Miss" >either confirm or deny this theory for me?
>I've also seen movies set in the U.K. in which young students refer >to their female teachers simply as "Miss" with no name attached. >Is this common now, or was it ever common? I am not aware of it >ever being done here in the U.S. And were male teachers referred >to as "Sir"?
That's exactly the way I recall it. England, 50s and 60s.
>(My only reference for this is the film "To Sir, >With Love" so I'm willing to admit I could be way off the mark.)
> > R J Valentine <r...@clark.net> wrote in message > > news:fOwU2.516$qg4.41443@dfw-read.news.verio.net... > > > But what next? Will there be a non-political effort to find a neutral > > > title to replace "Mr." and "Ms."?
> Not likely, Comrade. :-)
> > > Now _there's_ an effort that won't succeed for a long, long time.
> > How does "M." strike you?
> As French, where it's equivalent to our "Mr." Even in English, some > people try to give others their appropriate foreign-language courtesy > titles, so one might hear of a meeting of Mr. Priestley, Mrs. Christie, > Mme. Curie, M. Eiffel, Fraulein Meitner, Herr Porsche, etc. -- note
the M.
Does that mean that is permanently assigned to the French and is not available to anyone else with a different meaning? -- Skitt http://i.am/skitt/ Central Florida CAUTION: My veracity is under limited warranty
> This group will either drive you not care or drive you to excrutiating > self-conciousness or drive you to seek a convention and stick to it, eh?
> P. S. -- Be of good cheer; the rains will return as they always have, but don't > forget to unplug the computer during thunderstorms. Winter makes us lax in that > regard.
The modem connection too.
> Perchprism > (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
Anywhere near Maple Shade or Cherry Hill? Did I already ask that long ago? -- Skitt http://i.am/skitt/ Central Florida CAUTION: My veracity is under limited warranty
[<snip> discussion of "M." as a gender-free title]
] Does that mean that is permanently assigned to the French and is not ] available to anyone else with a different meaning?
Practically speaking, yes. In theory and rhetorically, of course, no. "Ms." was a natural, because it was a slightly more phonetic spelling of a widely used pronunciation of "Mrs." (which hardly anybody pronounces "Mistress" anymore). "M." has a history of Frenchness that would interfere with any neutral pronunciation.
There are gender-free titles (without a history of political coloring) that are actually in current use. I have heard people paged on a public-address system like "Customer Pat Smith" or "Passenger Chris Jones". But those particular ones have a narrow usage. If someone could come up with a widely known term beginning with "M." (or for that matter most any other letter) or one that could be fairly unambiguously abbreviated to two or three letters, the idea could get off the ground, so to say. But I'm not holding my breath, because using an entire name (or given initials and surname) is almost as easy.
> ... don't >> forget to unplug the computer during thunderstorms. Winter makes us >lax in that >> regard.
>The modem connection too.
Dig it.
>> Perchprism >> (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
>Anywhere near Maple Shade or Cherry Hill?
Both. Gloucester City, if you must know -- I'm not proud of it, but there it is. How can an ex-Latvian-born Euro-American now living in Central Florida know of such insignificant places?
>Did I already ask that long >ago?
Can't say. I try to stay young by forgetting everything so I always have new things to think about.
Perchprism (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
> This group will either drive you not care or drive you to excrutiating > self-conciousness or drive you to seek a convention and stick to it,
eh?
Tee-hee. I hope you take your slipups better than I do mine. -- Skitt (a Leftpondian) http://come.to/skitt/ ... and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.
>> R J Valentine <r...@clark.net> wrote in message >> news:fOwU2.516$qg4.41443@dfw-read.news.verio.net... >> > But what next? Will there be a non-political effort to find a neutral >> > title to replace "Mr." and "Ms."?
>Not likely, Comrade. :-)
>> > Now _there's_ an effort that won't succeed for a long, long time.
>> How does "M." strike you?
>As French, where it's equivalent to our "Mr." Even in English, some >people try to give others their appropriate foreign-language courtesy >titles, so one might hear of a meeting of Mr. Priestley, Mrs. Christie, >Mme. Curie, M. Eiffel, Fraulein Meitner, Herr Porsche, etc. -- note the M.
Well then, we had a hot, even sometimes hot tempered debate, using Madeleine Albright as a pawn, and resolved some issues, but left others in the air. As I understand it:
1. We more or less agree that married women may choose at will to use either their single or married surname, and continue to have that choice if their marital relationship ends.
2. Ross Howard confused sveral people by talking about famous surnames, because he'd confused Albright with Fulbright. He later apologised.
3. A point raised by Ross, refuted in passing by Donna Richoux, and never returned to, was that the use of Ms is an indication that you do not wish to publish your marrital status, and that therefore if you exercise the choice to use your husband's surname you forfeit the option to use Ms. Donna said no, it's not a package deal. On reflection, I'm with Ross here; using Ms Albright (sorry to use her again - she's just an example) smacks of trying to have your cake and eat it.
4. Then there was the question of nationality. Donna equates nationality with citizenship. Ross (and I) with birth. This is not a snobbish thing. I could emigrate to Calverstan, speak only Calverstani, become rabidly anti-british and never darken these shores again, but I can never cease to be English - that is not a choice I have.
5. Various people then asked the obvious question: if we do not wish to expose marital status by term of address, should we not be opaque to gender as well? This we thrashed around a bit, but came to no serious conclusion.
The next question has therefore to be: do we need these terms at all? What, if they are no longer badges of rank or status, do they do for us? Should we therefore be in the vanguard of abandoning them altogether? I think I would be happy to do so if I felt less vulnerable to charges of PC-ness.
Does anybody want to mount a stoic defence? -- Stephen Toogood
> Both. Gloucester City, if you must know -- I'm not proud of it, but there it > is. How can an ex-Latvian-born Euro-American now living in Central Florida know > of such insignificant places?
My work has taken me to both. There seem to be more reasonable motels there for visiting what was GE in Camden (in the old RCA Victor building, the one with the stained glass Nipper on it). I made some money at the track also and stayed in the place across the road from it. The other place was the Landmark Inn, as I recall. -- Skitt (a Leftpondian) http://come.to/skitt/ ... and that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be banana-shaped.
>The next question has therefore to be: do we need these terms at all? >What, if they are no longer badges of rank or status, do they do for us? >Should we therefore be in the vanguard of abandoning them altogether? I >think I would be happy to do so if I felt less vulnerable to charges of >PC-ness.
Forget PC; think Quaker. "Dear Stephen Toogood" may seem a bit odd the first time, but you get used to it. And you can attribute your new practices to something older and more ... well, more socially acceptable than PCness.
By the way, a Field Observation. Two lads of the village came this evening to offer their services on a sort of bob-a-job thing for the local Youth Club. (Bob-a-job, by the way, is now, I understand, a thing of the past.) They addressed my wife as "Miss", although they knew she was a wife, rather than as either "Mrs" or "Ms". I don't know whether it was a deliberate choice on their part.
>> This group will either drive you not care or drive you to excrutiating >> self-conciousness or drive you to seek a convention and stick to it, >eh?
>Tee-hee. I hope you take your slipups better than I do mine.
You've entered my vocabulary: Skitt's Law, a corollary of Murphy's Law, variously expressed as "any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself" or "the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster." The effect is, of course, magnified a hundredfold if the post is in reply to Skitt himself.
Perchprism (Southern New Jersey, near Philadelphia, USA)
On Mon, 26 Apr 1999 11:30:05 +0100, Stephen Toogood
<step...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote: >4. Then there was the question of nationality. Donna equates > nationality with citizenship. Ross (and I) with birth. This is > not a snobbish thing. I could emigrate to Calverstan, speak only > Calverstani, become rabidly anti-british and never darken these > shores again, but I can never cease to be English - that is not > a choice I have.
But had you emigrated to Calverstan at the age of eight, and found that Calverstan had a tradition of assimilating its immigrants and that virtually every Calverstani had a hyphenated shared heritage of Something-else-and-Calverstan or Lots-of-something-elses-and- Calverstan and all considered themselves upstanding Calverstanians of the first water, you could never cease to be Something-else and still be a proud Calverstanian at the same time, which is the likelier scenario here.
Ask any assimilated Englishman with American citizenship who has gone "home" only to be asked if this is his first visit to England just how English he feels that day.
-- Truly Donovan reply to truly at lunemere dot com
> [<snip> discussion of "M." as a gender-free title]
> ] Does that mean that is permanently assigned to the French and is not > ] available to anyone else with a different meaning?
> Practically speaking, yes. In theory and rhetorically, of course, no. > "Ms." was a natural, because it was a slightly more phonetic spelling of a > widely used pronunciation of "Mrs." (which hardly anybody pronounces > "Mistress" anymore). "M." has a history of Frenchness that would > interfere with any neutral pronunciation.
> There are gender-free titles (without a history of political coloring) > that are actually in current use. I have heard people paged on a > public-address system like "Customer Pat Smith" or "Passenger Chris > Jones". But those particular ones have a narrow usage. If someone could > come up with a widely known term beginning with "M." (or for that matter > most any other letter) or one that could be fairly unambiguously > abbreviated to two or three letters, the idea could get off the ground, so > to say. [...]
] R J Valentine wrote: ... ]> There are gender-free titles (without a history of political coloring) ]> that are actually in current use. I have heard people paged on a ]> public-address system like "Customer Pat Smith" or "Passenger Chris ]> Jones". But those particular ones have a narrow usage. If someone could ]> come up with a widely known term beginning with "M." (or for that matter ]> most any other letter) or one that could be fairly unambiguously ]> abbreviated to two or three letters, the idea could get off the ground, so ]> to say. [...] ] ] How about "comrade"? Or "citizen"?
Yeah, those are the ones with a history of political coloring. They can't shake their past. "Colonel" worked in _Inherit the Wind_, but may have problems for general use. "Hon." has possibilities (especially in Baltimore), but might meet some resistance at first in the UK (though the same could once be said of the term "gentleman", but that term has been successfully separated from its technical meaning in the UK).
In article <MHx$mCAtAEJ3E...@stenches.demon.co.uk>, Stephen Toogood <step...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>3. A point raised by Ross, refuted in passing by Donna Richoux, and > never returned to, was that the use of Ms is an indication that > you do not wish to publish your marrital status, and that > therefore if you exercise the choice to use your husband's > surname you forfeit the option to use Ms. Donna said no, it's > not a package deal. On reflection, I'm with Ross here; using Ms
What about those of us who took our husband's name thirty or more years ago, when keeping your own name was really not an option, but who still take the view that our marital status is not the business of 95% of the people who ask us for it?
There are plenty of us. It may be different for the younger generation.
> In article <MHx$mCAtAEJ3E...@stenches.demon.co.uk>, > Stephen Toogood <step...@stenches.nospam.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> >3. A point raised by Ross, refuted in passing by Donna Richoux, and > > never returned to, was that the use of Ms is an indication that > > you do not wish to publish your marrital status, and that > > therefore if you exercise the choice to use your husband's > > surname you forfeit the option to use Ms. Donna said no, it's > > not a package deal. On reflection, I'm with Ross here; using Ms > What about those of us who took our husband's name thirty or more years ago, > when keeping your own name was really not an option, but who still take the > view that our marital status is not the business of 95% of the people who ask > us for it?
> There are plenty of us. It may be different for the younger generation.
> Katy
So ... are you getting divorced, too? Is your hubby finally dumping you?
> What about those of us who took our husband's name thirty or more years ago, > when keeping your own name was really not an option, but who still take the > view that our marital status is not the business of 95% of the people who ask > us for it?
> There are plenty of us. It may be different for the younger
generation.
Is there a reason for not revealing one's married status? I think, making it obvious can prevent trouble, or is it adventure that is being sought? Is there a stigma attached to being single, but no longer young? Just wondering. -- Skitt http://i.am/skitt/ Central Florida CAUTION: My veracity is under limited warranty
|
