this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2023
535 points (95.0% liked)

News

23305 readers
4355 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The virtual school says its hands are tied due to Florida's "don't say gay" law. However, the teacher has lodged a complaint against it.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Mx. is a confusing title. How is it pronounced? "X" is an obnoxious letter choice to try to genericize gender.

But the article shows this teacher tried several other reasonable titles, like "professor" and "teacher" that were also denied. That's ridiculous, and clearly just targeting them.

[–] agnomeunknown@lemmy.world 52 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Please explain how you'd know how to pronounce Mrs as missus\mizzes without someone explaining it? It's no more confusing than that archaic bullshit.

[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They're abbreviations for master and mistress. Of course those are archaic etymologies, but that's how they evolved into abbreviations.

The strange thing is that Mx is an abbreviation that doesn't have a basis in a word as far as I know. It's literally conforming to those heteronormative traditions and adapting them with an "X" bandaid.

[–] agnomeunknown@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

The point is that the teacher is non binary and forced to choose an honorific. They wanted to use a neologism because there isn't an established term and they were fired because of bigotry. It doesn't really matter if the term makes sense to you or anyone else, it was their choice.

Your comments reek of the same smug shittiness of people who throw a fit about they\them pronouns not being "grammatically correct" when singular they has been in use for ages.

Non binary people exist, and if they are required by their job to use a formal title, they should have one that recognizes who they are.

[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Your knee-jerk reaction is that any criticism of the word is a criticism of non-binary people. I explicitly made a point to explain that's not the case. And I used "they" in my first comment, so I have no idea where you're coming from.

Treating any discussion as black and white and immediately becoming defensive isn't helping as much as you think.

There are plenty of titles they could use. The issue is this school rejected those other titles too, and that's not right.

[–] crashoverride@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

You sound like you're the type of person who gets offended for other people when in fact, those other people aren't offended in the first place. I wish I could downvote you more than once

[–] cricket99@lemmy.world -4 points 11 months ago

I don't want to send me kids to a school where the teachers intentionally try to impose their made up beliefs on them. Is it too much to ask for teachers to stick to the subjects they are supposed to teach?

[–] mriormro@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Your comments reek of the same smug shittiness

Their comment doesn't read this way at all. You're just arguing past them.

[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I kinda feel the same about Xe/Xim. I think the reasoning is just "they have to abide by the same conventions or people won't get it." It would be a lot cooler to just fully break away from those traditions and have something more eloquent, but language keeps taking the path of least resistance.

[–] cricket99@lemmy.world -3 points 11 months ago

Sounds like a first world problem if I have ever heard of it. I think you can survive going as Ms or Mr.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Mr./Mrs. are evolutions of language, like you said. They don't really refer to the original words for the most part. Mx. is an evolution of the same language and just as easy to pronounce. Sure, it's a "bandaid" if you want to call it that, but the English language is 90% bandaids. To rule out this one when there isn't a good alternative for general use (prof. or teacher would be fine for this person, but not for someone who's not a teacher) is pretty narrow minded.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You not knowing how to pronounce something isn't reason enough for it not to exist.

[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm not saying it is, but it should be enough to start a discussion on whether there's a better, more easily pronouncable term while we're in a discussion about titles.

[–] AppleJuiceGoblin@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If I really think about it, what makes Mr. Or Ms. any easier to pronounce? They are actually a bit less intuitive because they are abbreviations.

As far as two letters go, I feel like Mx. is just one step removed from Mix, so it seems easy to me. Perhaps Mr. and Ms. are just easier to accept because we have lived with them our whole life. A lot of the English language seems weird when we step outside of it.

[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Mr. is derived from master and Ms. is derived from mistress. Their pronunciation is derived from their etymology.

I agree though that common usage plays a part.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Master and Mr are different in usage, the former for young people (under 18).

Ms is pronounced with the /z/ sound, not the 's' in mistress.

[–] EmpathicVagrant@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Ms. Mrs. And Miss are all from mistress apparently, and Ms. (MIZ) was used to address a woman regardless of marital status.

Today I learned.

[–] dvoraqs@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

This dang language keeps evolving, doesn't it?

[–] RGB3x3@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I'm all for the "Ey", "em", "eir" pronouns, but I don't have a stake in the game.

For example,

Ey worked as a teacher for the school until ey was fired for using neutral pronouns. Eir opinion stated in an interview was that e will not change how e refers to emself.

English needs gender neutral pronouns because they can be useful in a situation such as needing to refer to a person named Smith, but don't know their gender. ("They, them, their" should be reserved for groups, imo).

"Mey." Or "Mer." could be the solution for a title in this situation.

[–] CoggyMcFee@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Seems a hell of a lot easier to just use “they/them” as we already do. If it were too confusing, it would evolve into something else naturally anyway. German gets by just fine with “they” and the formal form of “you” being the same. I think we’ll be fine.

[–] Mirshe@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Singular they has existed for centuries, and been used that way for centuries. In normal usage, it should be obvious from context whether you're using singular or plural.

[–] stella@lemm.ee -4 points 1 year ago

First time studying American English?

[–] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago

To me a professor teaches at a college or university but teacher should 100% have been an option.

[–] Fandangalo@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I live in MA and have an X marker. I really like it? It’s a common variable, and I like the relationship.

I usually say Mixter, but it’s English so it’s all made up.

[–] PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Better to get rid of the others than add one.

[–] FoundTheVegan@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Isn't that like, short for Mexican. Like in texmex restaurants.