Let’s say there’s someone I want to call Mr/Ms/Mrs [Name], but I don’t know their gender, is there a title I can use that doesn’t assume their gender?
“Hey cunt” works for anybody. But your mileage may vary depending on your location.
Should that not be properly, “Oi, cunt!” ?
Depends on what you’re going for, I guess. I’m just an American who doesn’t like most people.
Works best in Australia
Scotland concurs
Can you say that again, I couldn’t understand that
M’theydy
🎩
🧔
Slightly off topic but I really like the approach where the honorific is just dropped entirely. So just [Name]. No Mr/Ms/Mrs. It mostly doesn’t serve any purpose anyway.
That’s what we did in Sweden in the 60s. It feels so archaic whenever I have to enter an honorific on documents (i.e when booking hotels and flights) from other countries.
Sometimes they allow for you to write in other stuff. I put in “His majesty” once, it printed out as “His Firstname Lastname” in my hotel reservation paper. Disappointed.
I also put in “Emperor” for some mailing list stuff. I get a chuckle when I get mails from them. “Emperor RaivoKulli, sign up now for the conference”
I spent the last 20 years in the US military, most of it being referred to as “Sergeant [cobysev].” The past year since I’ve been retired, I’ve been trying to get used to being called “Mr. [cobysev].” It’s really weird, especially since I joined the military at 18, so no one called me Mr. previously.
Honestly you could probably get away with just “Sarge” as a nickname. Won’t help much on official documents but it might make conversation a little more comfortable.
I almost never see it used anymore here in the US, either. Let’s just cancel that useless title.
On the one hand it feels really weird when someone (not a child) calls me with that phrasing - that’s my Dad plus no one does that anymore
But on the other hand it seems disrespectful for a child to call an adult by first name, and I don’t know a better alternative
Why don’t we just replace honorifics with pronouns?
She/Her Smith, please find enclosed your Kmart rewards card
That solves the problem of where to put pronouns in formal settings
This is honestly the right answer. You can be formal without the honorific. Include any titles they may have (PHD, PE).
I vote that we change it to Mmm.
That will make all honorific communications sultry and interesting.
Mmm Adulated, We appreciate your interest in our organization, but we regret to inform you that we will not be able to hire you for the role. Please continue to…
Mmm Adulated 🤤
Would you not be Mmm Aspersion?
Mf
I have started just using M. Like, “Dear M. Lastname”. I saw it being done in French and just adopted it for English too. No one’s complained yet. (Have also seen Mx. but figure that could be confusing.)
Just fyi, M. in French is only equivalent to Mr, it’s short for Monsieur. Mme (short for Madame) is equivalent to Mrs, and Mlle (short for Mademoiselle) is equivalent to Miss/Ms.
So using M. for everyone is equivalent to saying Mr. for everyone.
Yeah, I know! That’s why I was surprised when someone addressed me as “M.” (while I don’t present as such, traditionally) in French. So, I thought “that’s neat!” and picked it up.
“Dear M. M. Night Shamalyan”
Dear M. Eminem
M’minem! /tips fedora
M&M’inem! waves with a bag of M&Ms
In the sci-fi book Hyperion (which takes place hundreds of years in the future) they use this convention throughout and it works really well, so I’ve also wished that it were widely adopted in our society. (Except for androids, where the title is A. rather than M.)
I’ve been playing though Prey and seeing people refer to Morgan Yu as “M. Yu” always throws me for a loop because I think they’re using an honorific. Doesn’t help that Morgan is already designed to be a gender-ambivalent character so the player can choose their gender and the story will still be the same
A sci-fi book from 1991 used that (Hyperion), and I thought it was just futurespeak. TIL!
TIL M. Bison was nonbinary.
Homie
This is the one.
Comrade, or Captain
This is exactly my approach, except I usually use Cap’n.
Lord [name], my [name], my dear [name], the one they call [name], oh great and powerful [name].
Jokes aside, one I’ve heard of that I liked was “misc” like miscellaneous lol. That one works a bit better in writing that verbal though.
Some other popular ones include Mx, M, Ind/Div, N/A, Mt, Nb, and many others.
For my own personal suggestion, I kinda like the idea of using “The” as a gender neutral title. Like instead of Mr or Ms Smith, it’s The Smith. Has a nice ring to it lol
Hello, The Gary…
You can’t tell me that isn’t objectively the best way to refer to someone named Gary.
Chookity!
Not a contemporary one, but during the French Revolution, they used ‘Citizen’ for everyone.
comrade
Which, in French, is “citoyen” (masculine) or “citoyenne” (feminine). Not a neutral gendered word.
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Well, it depends. Some nouns are epicene, like “enfant” or “adulte” (“un/une enfant/adulte”). Many adjectives are: “rapide”, solide", “mobile”…
But it is gender neutral in English, the language OP was asking about.
Tmw
︽cars are recognised as French citizens
Too bad we can’t adopt the Japanese “-san” honorific, as it is gender neutral!
Mx (pronounced “mix”) is getting more common
Also, Dr
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Sup, fool?
Wagwan fam?
“My Liege”
The Right Honorable
Mx is common-ish. Here’s a relevant poll regarding people’s usages of it: https://www.gendercensus.com/results/2023-mx/
