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Did you know that honorifics, seemingly applied equally – and equally respectfully – to men and women, are not, in fact, equal, nor equally respectful?
There’s a very interesting post from dictionary.com, a useful word-nerd web site, on the topic of the etymology of Mr. and Mrs. According to the folks over there, the origins of “Mr./Mister” are as follows:
“Once used to address men under the rank of knighthood, by the mid-18th century mister became a common English honorific to generally address males of a higher social rank.”
Here we see that “Mister” does indeed have its roots in a term of respect (or alternatively, fear and control. Either way, not too bad of a deal for the recipients of the prefix).
On Mrs.:
“Mrs. is a contraction derived from Middle English maistresse, ‘female teacher, governess.’ Once a title of courtesy, mistress fell into disuse around the late 14th century. The pronunciation, however, remained intact. By the 15th century, mistress evolved into a derogatory term for “a kept woman of a married man. … ‘Miss’ also derives from ‘mistress.’ ”
Both “Mrs.” and “Miss” derive from questionably neutral (female teacher, governess – it could be argued that these were servant-class occupations back in the 17th century, hence why neutrality is questionable) and outright negative (kept woman of a married man) origins.
So while the use of the term “Mr.” is straightforward, the use of any honorific for a female is not. Even the use of the quasi-neutral phrase “Ms.” has alienating potential in certain fundamentalist/antifeminist circles. Nowadays, “Mrs.” simply means “married.” Which is pretty darn problematic in and of itself – defining women by their marital status, but not men, is so far beyond the pale of how modern society should be functioning that writing more on the topic seems redundant – it’s why “Ms.” was coined.
Sure, maybe it’s just a question of semantics – and I’ll admit I’m overly sensitive to such things – I do, after all, cringe every time someone abuses an adverb (“Eat Local”?!? No, it’s eat locally! If you’re going to be snobby about your food, you may as well be snobby about your grammar as well. Sheesh.) and have to bite my tongue when I overhear someone saying “There is five options …”
But I’d argue that the use of honorifics of any sort is damaging not only to women, but to society in general. Look closer and you’ll see they’re more insidious than simple grammatical gaffery. The use (or conspicuous lack of use) of honorifics is a way to editorialize – just like the use of modifying words like said/claim. Extreme case in point? The NY Times stopped using “Mr. bin Laden,” switching to just “Bin Laden” at some point, but kept the honorifics for everyone else. Although no one will argue that criminals ought to be accorded extra social niceties, it’s easy to see how the subtle drop of an honorific prefix could be used as a lexocological weapon.
It remains interesting to me that the New York Times continues to insist on using honorifics – with notable exceptions. Gender-neutral outs exist only for people with Ph.Ds and religious credentials, which is yet another way to subtly reinforce class striation from within the confines of the printed word.
What do you think – does being called Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms or ma’am/sir connote old-fashioned respect or outdated snobbery? Is this type of thing done in other countries outside the US?
Read the full Dictionary.com post here.
Honorifics are an outdated nicety and should be abandoned as they bring nothing to the discourse.We don't use any honorifics in Serbia which I consider one of the good things about this country. Even the president is just Boris Tadić in printed media.
Agreed entirely – and thanks for the information about Serbia – do you live there?
Interesting post. I remember reading a newspaper style guide (possibly the Guardian's?) which had quite specific rules on when to use honorifics – always for non-criminals, I think. Naturally it's disappeared now that I've gone to look for it.
Strange! Here I thought the NYT was the last bastion of outdated-ness in the journo world. Shows to go how much I know! I wonder how they determine who is and is not a criminal – ie, is it someone who is standing trial? What if they've not been proven guilty yet? Or what if it's someone who was convicted of a crime, but has since served their time and has been an upstanding citizen for ages? Non-ubiquitous application of honorifics is so problematic…
Why do we need honorifics at all? We have perfectly usable names.
Great post; useful to know the etymology and shifts in meaning!I would argue, however, that whilst the connotations of the feminine titles are repulsive indeed, sometimes the use of honorifics is useful. For example, whilst in some languages, such as French and Russian, there different ways of addressing people in formal and non-formal situations, English just doesn't have that system anymore…so honorifics can, in English, be a mark of respect. Case in point – when I teach a class, I insist that the kids address me as 'Ms' (I hate Miss and Mrs due to their obvious sexist subtext) as a mark of respect for my authority.
That is a damn good point, Jenny. I didn't even think of the teacher-student dynamic or verb tenses in other languages, even though I spent forever learning the difference between tu and usted in Spanish. I wonder if those languages have the equivalent of honorifics outside the use of tu/usted type things? And if tu/usted are ever used to insult or disparage?
This post runs straight into the etymological fallacy. The origins of words aren't necessarily directly related to their current meanings (unless you think avocados actually have something to do with testicles!).That said, current usages of English honorifics ARE problematic, as has been discussed at many points in the past. It would be nice if there were a generic gender-neutral one.
I totally agree with your objection to honorifics identifying women by marital status, while men are not so identified. However, if titles were completely dropped, how would we address people out in the day-to-day real world? Would we insist upon addressing everyone by their first name? (Too familiar for me.) By first and last? ("Your table is ready, Dominick Smith.") Seems awkward.