Based on a true story…
I too have earned a gender neutral pronoun. Makes me sound like a pompous ass of I were to insist it be used in everyday company.
Honestly that’s probably the third best reason to get a doctorate I have ever heard.
The best is “I really want to spent four years researching this super specific stuff”.
The second best is “I’m interested in an academic career”.
All the others are worse.
There should be more widespread gender-neutral titles, for those fence-sitting centrists who aren’t interested in defending normative gender roles but don’t have the wherewithal to transition.
Having said that, if “Dr.” is an example, “Mr.” would become gender-neutral, with “Mrs.”/“Ms.” becoming archaisms like “Doctrix”. The other alternative is further generalising the relatively novel title Mx, which would also have the benefit of infuriating the TERFs
i think the trouble with making the masculine versions the new neutral is that it can 1. come across as erasing women/non men and 2. can feel especially offensive to transfems. so while it would be an easy solution, it might not be the best.
on the other hand, i try to do my part and for example only use actor and waiter and never actress and waitress :3
english is very nice for how few gendered words it has (unlike some horrible other languages ;w;) and i love to try to speak completely gender neutral
I’d like to make Sir gender neutral.
Or madam!
Yeah we already had a time where male titles were the default.
Fun story time! The suffix -tor is actually, historically, used for men, i.e, aviator, doctor, etc. There exists another suffix, -trix, that isn’t used much at all anymore, but for women. You may know of one of the only remaining uses of this suffix (that I know about) in the form of “dominatrix”. This has been your antiquated vocabulary lesson. Test on Friday, homework due on Thursday.
Does that mean the male version of Beatrix is Beator? As in meat beator
Beatrix would (I think) mean “she who is blessed” in Latin, with the masculine being Beatus (which, while it sounds like a joke redneck name today, is seen in the title of European religious music, and is pronounced in three syllables as “bee-ate-us”)
I think Beatus/Beata are the blessed. I think Beator/Beatrix would be the blesser?
My Latin is rusty.
Wouldn’t it be Bee-ay-tus? Mind you i haven’t taken a Latin class in like 15 years
If you pretend it’s Italian and just pronounce all the vowels one by one, you’ll get a very passable interpretation of ecclesiastical Latin.
Ah catholic school hired a classics major so I was taught classical pronunciation alongside vocabulary not befitting a church or modern setting
I have a good friend in Rome named Beatus Meatus…
Do you find his name… risable?
I have heard phallatrix used as a euphemism (bc if it’s in Latin it’s fine…)
