Scotland Independence Vote

[JohnW2]

In some situations, that may be the sensible approach. I recently saw a proposal that universities should stop awarding Batchelor's and Master's degrees - or, at least, not award them to women.

What's wrong with that? ... Spinster of Science ... Mistress of Arts ... They just roll off the tongue, don't they?

If you think so!

However, that was not really what was being suggested, probably because that could easily stir up even more concerns. Rather, they were talking mainly about the possibility of moving to non-gender-specific terminology, common to both males and females.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ericmark]

It is normal to refer to the Lady Mayor where female never the Mayoress that is reserved for the spouse of the Mayor.

The poor guy was never officially referred to as Mayoress that was just in the pub where the lads were taking the Mick.

I do find some terms are a problem where sex is not indicated. A Doctor as a qualification is no problem but as a profession to find you have a female doing the job only at the point of meeting them can be some what embarrassing.

But we don't refer to a male nurse as the Lord Nurse so why refer to female mayor as Lady Mayor. However we do call the male teacher Sir but female teacher Miss regardless of their married status in many cases.

At one time unmarried males were called Master but that seems to have been dropped.

In most languages all things have a gender even a table and a window the neuter gender used in English is unusual in other languages the words used within the sentence define the sex without the need for a different word for male and female.

As yes it was Lady Thatcher not Sir Thatcher even though she was the baroness not her husband.

On a female it's a yashmac on a male it's a beard snood but it is in essence the same bit of clothing.

P.S. what has this got to do with Scottish lack of total independence? There has been no divorce but we still do have many rules which differ across the boarders.

There was a raging argument in Wales over a student visa where it was refused because the student did not speak English. She was from Patagonia so did speak fluent Welsh. After the outcry she was allowed in the Principality. (Wales is not a different country hence why not included in the Union Jack.)