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Florida teacher fired for using gender-neutral honorific ‘Mx.’
(www.nbcnews.com)
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this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2023
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It's not "fairly simple if you have common sense". The known abbreviations have been in use for a hundred or more years and are widely known. Everyone knows how to pronounce them, the only curveball is Mrs being misses since it was originallymistress but that word later became associated with cheating and "ladies of the night".
Mx was made up recently, it stands for nothing AFAIK. They just took the standard M beginning and slapped X on it because X tends to mean "unknown".
It's akin to asking you to address me as "Zf. Cat" because that's what makes me feel comfortable.
Repeat your argument when the concept of Mr and Mrs were introduced.
Language evolves as we learn new things. Computer used to refer to a person. "We have floppy discs, so why make a new name for CDs?"
They weren't introduced in anything like an analogous way. Mr and Mrs evolved slowly over decades and even centuries from older forms referring to master and mistress.
I don't have a strong opinion about Mx either way, but as an amateur linguistics nerd I can assure you that the way it's been introduced to our lexicon is very different from these much older terms.
Yep, language flows and changes over long periods of time, not through a court order or "marginalized" people screaming "we want our own pronoun that we just came up with to be culturally except! If you don't comply, you are an insensitive asshole!"
How slowly was the introduction of the word covid? As a linguist, the change of language is the fascination.
Most floppy disks aren't floppy either, so maybe not the best example.
The argument is "Mr and Mrs are established in society. It is stupid to add Mx."
Floppy discs were well established. Was it stupid to add CD to our vocabulary?
Actually the floppy part of the disk is inside the plastic case. It's a floppy piece of magnetic tape.
But that's a great example of how language evolves - people don't even know what the name means, and yet they know what it is.
Ok, Zf. Cat :) If that makes you feel comfortable it costs me nothing to be considerate of your preference. See?
Now you have to remember that for every interaction with me. If you happen to call me sometime else, I'll grit my teeth and have to correct you or if I'm an asshole, I'll berate you about it, constantly. You will also have to refer to me as Zf. Cat to everyone you know, regardless of whether or not they know me, or are in my presence.
You should be asking yourself why you assume the person would react angrily instead of just politely correcting the pronunciation. If someone accidentally mispronounces my name I gently correct them, while smiling, and I have never once been offended or take it personally. You also assume it is a heavy burden on others to simply call people what they'd like to be called. When it is not. Being angry over this is not a healthy attitude. It's simple manners to be considerate of others and that is precisely what the person is asking for, nothing more.
If you have to correct someone about your name/title every single time it gets pretty damn annoying. I met a girl years ago whose name was spelled Remy but pronounced Ray-me she said "I hate my parents for it" (I doubt she actually hated her parents, but hated the fact that they gave her a "bad" name).
Except it's not like that at all, because you just made that honorific up!
Mx. has an actual cultural context outside of their classroom. Sure, it's new, but it's not like this teacher just made it up themselves.
"Mx" was also just made up by someone.
So was every word in existence.
What is that context? You failed to include it.
The context is Mx. already being used and recognized around the country and around the world. It's new, but it's not just something the teacher made up.