The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is considering adding the gender neutral honorific ‘Mx’, to be included alongside Mr, Mrs, Ms or Miss, to represent transgender people and those who do not wish to identify their gender, for the first time.
Speaking to The Sunday Times, Jonathan Dent, assistant editor on the OED, said the title is the first new honorific to be accepted as an addition to the current set of gender identifiers.
He said it is an example of how the English language adapts to people’s needs, “with people using language in ways that suit them rather than letting language dictate identity to them”. More.
See: The Independent
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Verenigde Staten
Local time: 12:05
Engels naar Spaans
+ ...
Do we really need more "politically correct" terms to be added to our language, terms that are invented and not actually used by anyone? My opinion: NO.
Verenigd Koninkrijk
Local time: 19:05
Frans naar Engels
+ ...
- but they will be used, I expect, people will make sure of that
Canada
Local time: 14:05
Lid 2015
Zweeds naar Engels
+ ...
...that the reason they're "invented" is that there are people who actually need them. Real people with feelings whose lives will be made just that tiny little bit easier by these words coming into use.
Polen
Local time: 20:05
Engels naar Pools
+ ...
...that the reason they're "invented" is that there are people who actually need them. Real people with feelings whose lives will be made just that tiny little bit easier by these words coming into use.
Personal quirks of some people shouldn't be making aspects of everyday life weird for everybody else. People should concentrate on what they do with their own lives rather than what impact they want to force on others' lives e.g. by expecting to be referred to in convuluted ways or making a fuss over disclosing one's gender.
And what about the feelings of people who don't want to be addressed as 'Mx'? There already are women who don't like the shift to 'Ms' as default title for their sex.
[Edited at 2015-05-10 22:43 GMT]
Duitsland
Local time: 20:05
Duits naar Engels
Golly folks, I haven't been this excited since the worthies at the OED added 'kewl' to their august lexicon. (Don't believe it? Read it and weep: http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/312057.)
Canada
Local time: 14:05
Nederlands naar Slowaaks
+ ...
Because that's how it works, right - first you add words to a dictionary, then people magically start using it
India
Local time: 23:35
Lid 2006
Engels naar Hindi
+ ...
Mx is clearly a feminine term. A gender-neutral version would have been Mxy. So the Oxford dictionary people have clearly made a scientific error in including this term in their dictionary and should forthwith correct it.
India
Local time: 23:35
Lid 2006
Engels naar Hindi
+ ...
Because that's how it works, right - first you add words to a dictionary, then people magically start using it
You can compare English to an html page with a stylesheet. The stylesheet is of course the Oxford dictionary. You make whatever changes you need to have in the English language (the html page) in the stylesheet and lo and behold, they get reflected accurately throughout the English language. Isn't it as easy as eating cake to fix languages? I wonder why it took Oxford so long to learn this trick! It could have easily purged English of all its quirks long ago and we would have had a perfect language to use internationally. That would even have obviated the need for translation as who would want to use another language when we have an Oxford-fixed perfect language to choose instead?
[Edited at 2015-05-11 01:54 GMT]
Local time: 19:05
Frans naar Engels
+ ...
Nice one, Mxy Balu!
This Mx business is the silliest thing I've heard for days. All the rage in greeny PC Brighton, I see.
Why is an "honorific" needed at all in these soi-disant egalitarian days?
Spanje
Local time: 20:05
Lid 2005
Engels naar Spaans
+ ...
Nice one, Mxy Balu!
This Mx business is the silliest thing I've heard for days. All the rage in greeny PC Brighton, I see.
Why is an "honorific" needed at all in these soi-disant egalitarian days?
Exactly.
To me the solution in English and probably other languages would be as simple as removing old-fashioned Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx. (yes, Mx is old-fashioned from inception since it follows the same system), and simply use "Ps." for "person".:
Dear Ps. Paula Murray,
Dear Ps. Robert Finney,
Dear Ps. Haeden Marie Friston,
Dear Ps. Bryce Noelle Black,
Dear Ps. Dana International,
This way, we can give all people equal treatment and continue to waste our time adding some kind of useless honorific.
India
Local time: 23:35
Lid 2006
Engels naar Hindi
+ ...
Nice one, Mxy Balu!
This Mx business is the silliest thing I've heard for days. All the rage in greeny PC Brighton, I see.
Why is an "honorific" needed at all in these soi-disant egalitarian days?
Exactly.
To me the solution in English and probably other languages would be as simple as removing old-fashioned Mr./Ms./Mrs./Mx. (yes, Mx is old-fashioned from inception since it follows the same system), and simply use "Ps." for "person".:
Dear Ps. Paula Murray,
Dear Ps. Robert Finney,
Dear Ps. Haeden Marie Friston,
Dear Ps. Bryce Noelle Black,
Dear Ps. Dana International,
This way, we can give all people equal treatment and continue to waste our time adding some kind of useless honorific.
May be for English, but not for all languages. In Hindi, as I had earlier mentioned, all nouns are gendered, and "person", a noun, is a masculine term, and we would be neatly back to square one.
Verenigd Koninkrijk
Local time: 19:05
Frans naar Engels
+ ...
Do we really need more "politically correct" terms to be added to our language, terms that are invented and not actually used by anyone? My opinion: NO.
I'm not exactly sure as I've never seen or heard it used, but from the description, I'm wondering if this is more a "database filler" used in admin rather than an actual title that people really use or would want to use for everyday purposes.
After all, part of the raison d'être of a title is to designate gender. So if you don't identify with any particular gender, why not just do away with the title altogether? What I suspect happened was that "Mx" came about because there was a "space on the database" that "needed to be filled with something". From that point of view, you could argue about whether it's a "term added to the language".
On the other hand, a comprehensive dictionary may well take a wide view of what "the language" is that it is trying to document, and decide to include this kind of thing. (A similar argument goes for a host of other weird abbreviations, mathematical squiggles etc that are in a sense "paralanguage", but nonetheless "language" enough for some dictionaries to consider them.)
Verenigd Koninkrijk
Local time: 19:05
Frans naar Engels
+ ...
- but they will be used, I expect, people will make sure of that
Well, according to the article, this designation *has* been in use [in its limited context of administrative forms/databases] for 20 years, and the OED editors are now *considering* including it... just as they are considering including all sorts of weird and wonderful chemical and computing symbols etc on a daily basis.
Polen
Local time: 20:05
Engels naar Pools
+ ...
Yeah, right, 'has been in use,' by like 5 people on the planet. I wish they'd finally get over the gender thing.
Verenigde Staten
Local time: 14:05
Chinees naar Engels
Mx actually would be somewhat helpful for Chinese to English translations. Documents will often label someone 'Manager Wang' in Chinese. This presents a bit of a problem, as the more natural sounding translation is often Mr. Wang or Ms. Wang, except that without more information it's impossible to tell the gender of this individual. Enter 'Mx. Wang' !
[Edited at 2015-05-11 10:09 GMT]
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