Mesaĝoj: 52
Lingvo: English
rikforto (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 17:34:44
jagr2808:They are getting de-emphasized quite a bit. And the most prominent uses are increasingly reality TV and trashy magazines. It think for many it feels alternatively old-fashioned or voyeuristic to focus on marital status like that.Armand6:How is it sexist? (la vorto fraŭlino)Vestitor:For what reason?It is obsolete, sexist and being phased out of EU languages. It is literally cringeworthy.
Bachelor and bacholerette is still used in english, to some degree at least...
Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 18:26:24
Given that marital status is viewed as increasingly less important in Western culture nowadays (especially for women), it seems only normal that the terms are not as common nowadays.
The complaint levelled against "Mrs" and "Miss" is that they unnecessarily emphasise a woman's marital status, whereas no distinction is made for males - "Mr" could refer to a married or unmarried man. I'm inclined to agree - one's marital status is really nobody's business.
Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 18:41:54
Tempodivalse:Actually I think this is not quite right. Frau/fraulein, mevrouw/mejuffrouw do not necessarily refer to marital status; they are age dependent. My ex-girlfriend once found a usb outside our door and suspected it was from one of the students who lived next door. She posted a letter through the door for them to collect it and the girl who came for it said 'thanks mevrouw'. This was the first time anyone had called her this and she felt old (even though she was only 35).
The complaint levelled against "Mrs" and "Miss" is that they unnecessarily emphasise a woman's marital status, whereas no distinction is made for males - "Mr" could refer to a married or unmarried man. I'm inclined to agree - one's marital status is really nobody's business.
The point is they refer to a young woman as opposed to an older woman. Previously a young man was called 'master' in English, but that's becoming obsolete. The words 'lad' and 'jungen' in German or 'jongen' in Dutch are the usual colloquial differentiators between a male who is not considered a man and someone who is.
Equality can exist without having to wipe out forms that were out in place when times were different; when men were routinely put first. This business has led to nonsense terms in English like 'the chair' instead of chairman in a meeting. It really is claptrap.
Tempodivalse (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 18:59:11
Actually I think this is not quite right. Frau/fraulein, mevrouw/mejuffrouw do not necessarily refer to marital status; they are age dependent.I cannot speak about the Dutch equivalent, but in English "Miss" and "Mrs" are often (if not usually) associated with marital status. Surely you have seen in old films the smitten man disappointed when the object of his infatuations is introduced as a "Mrs"!
I have noticed that "Miss" and "Mrs" are often used by default for young and middle-aged/old women, respectively, but I suspect this stems from the notion that most women marry after a certain age. (It is a little odd to refer to a 75-year-old woman who's never married as "Miss" for this reason.)
Or perhaps the terms have different implications in different parts of the English-speaking world?
deltasalmon (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 19:14:09
rikforto (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 19:18:17
Tempodivalse:My Grandmother, who was fairly careful about these sorts of things, would have considered it a faux pas to correspond with someone and use Mrs./Ms. based on age, not marital status. That's probably pretty representative of the East Coast in the 30s. I have heard it is a little more flexible in the American South.Actually I think this is not quite right. Frau/fraulein, mevrouw/mejuffrouw do not necessarily refer to marital status; they are age dependent.I cannot speak about the Dutch equivalent, but in English "Miss" and "Mrs" are often (if not usually) associated with marital status. Surely you have seen in old films the smitten man disappointed when the object of his infatuations is introduced as a "Mrs"!
I have noticed that "Miss" and "Mrs" are often used by default for young and middle-aged/old women, respectively, but I suspect this stems from the notion that most women marry after a certain age. (It is a little odd to refer to a 75-year-old woman who's never married as "Miss" for this reason.)
Or perhaps the terms have different implications in different parts of the English-speaking world?
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 19:56:37
Vestitor:I think this fascination with these words being sexist is an English-speaking phenomenon.Not at all. There is a movement in France to refer to women uniformly as "madame" and get rid of "mademoiselle".
There's no reason why women shouldn't be referred to with one uniform term since men are referred to with one uniform term. Why the sexist insistence on needing to know a woman's marital status before addressing her? I know of no English speaking country where "Mrs" refers primarily to age. There's a reason why the neutral "Ms." ("miz" ) is common.
Plus, if you are married and didn't follow the antiquated custom of taking your husband's surname (a relic of a time when women lost their family name upon marriage), then "Mrs. [your maiden name]" is a bit weird. People assume that Mrs. X is the wife of Mr. X, not Mr. Y.
Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 20:14:08
It's a pity to lose madamoiselle. It seems to me very odd to refer to a young woman or older girl as 'madame'. When I lived in Belgium (Flemish part) the use of Madam, though different to French use, isn't normally used for young women.
I still think it is age-dependent. The word differences are just shorthand for young woman or older woman and are rather more polite in my opinion. It would be better if there was a term for young men.
I remember when I was a child in England we called any older woman 'Mrs' or rather missus, since we didn't tend to enquire about marital status when being chased away from scrumping apples from someone's backyard.
erinja (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 21:02:34
Vestitor:Here in the Netherlands women keep their maiden names, some make double-barrelled names and some men have their name and adopt the woman's name.Apparently the origin of a woman taking her husband's name is English. Originally women lost their name completely when they married, they had no surname whatsoever but to be the wife of the man. It was actually an improvement when things changed and women took the husband's name, because they had a name versus no name.
I can't quite understand how so many women are willing to throw out their name and lose their identity as a separate person, but whatever, they're free to do that and I'm free not to do it.
Vestitor (Montri la profilon) 2015-aŭgusto-20 21:29:07
I quite agree that a married woman should be able to keep her name if she wants and that a woman can choose how people refer to her, but it has to be reasonable. When it starts getting into squabbles about whose name is placed first in a union I start to wonder if getting married was a good idea at all. If a woman's name comes first in a double-barrelled name via marriage, you don't see groups of disgruntled men starting a pressure group to reverse the name order.
The leftovers of gender relations in so many languages have often lost meaning as mere words. The status of women changes and people think that they should alter language structures to fit this change, but it just makes a mess of whole languages. Even worse people think if they abolish e.g. 'Mrs' that it will improve a woman's lot. The latter is particularly idiotic.