Fixing Mx and Ms
The honorific of Mx was first introduced in the 1970s to allow for something beyond the binary, but it took over 40 years for it to fairly become mainstream. Even now, this title is little used and doesn’t have an official pronunciation.
Similarly, Ms which has been in public use since 1971, has most resorting to saying something like ‘muzz’. Why is this so important? Language dictates our reality. If we don’t give Ms and Mx the proper extended-pronunciation respect they deserve, we will be forever trapped within the problematic Mr, Miss, and Mrs.
Title/Honorific/Prefix in England
So what is a title/honorific? An honorific is a particular phrase said just before your name to indicate respect. At the moment, in England, everyone is given a title. But this hasn’t always been the case.
A Little History of Common Titles
In the 17th century, titles used to distinguish between the ‘gentry’ and the poor ‘common people’. If you had lower status/wealth you simply went by your full name.
The first distinguishing title taken by an adult, who didn’t have a formal/academic/religious/nobility/gentry title, was ‘Master’ (abbreviated to Mr) and ‘Mistress’ (abbreviated to Mrs). This was introduced to indicate that you were wealthy or had a higher rank than a poor person without land or apparent significance in ‘higher’ society.
Over time, ‘Miss’ started being used by “socially ambitious young (unmarried) women, as a means to identify their gentility, as distinct from the mere businesswoman or upper servant.” Because women were expected to get married before their twenties, if you remained unmarried and you were still a ‘Miss’ at 20+ you were seen as a failure. It was only well into the 18th century that adult women could go by ‘Miss’ with less stigmatism/sense of insult, but this stigma still exists today.
By the late 19th century ‘master’ was designated as a title for “boys who had not yet entered society”, thus unmarried men, and ‘Mister’ became the new term for an adult (married) man.
‘Master’ and ‘Mistress’ have now been removed from modern use as common titles, and what used to be the abbreviation of Master, ‘Mr’ was re-assigned to stand for ‘Mister’. For women, Misses is now ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’ has been left without an extended form.
… this is sexist right?
Yes! Even though the phrase that came to mean an unmarried man/boy ‘Master’ has fallen out of use, the female equivalent ‘Miss’ is still being used. A less sexist course of history would have left us with 'Mr-Mister’ and ‘Mrs-Misses’, both of which would not indicate the marital status of a person.
Michael Erickson who has done extensive research into the history of titles said, “Those who objected to ‘Miss’ and ‘Mrs’ argue that they define a woman by which man she belongs to. If a woman is ‘Miss,’ it is her father; if she is addressed as ‘Mrs,’ she belongs to her husband.”
So what did we do? Create ANOTHER title!
‘Ms’ was first used as another form of abbreviation for mistress in the 17th century, but Sheila Michaels reintroduced it in the 90s as a unifying title for all women regardless of age or marital status.
‘Ms’ became suddenly popular after a radio interview with Sheila Michaels resulted in the naming of the feminist magazine ‘MS’ in 1971, and as a result, the title exploded into common usage.
In ‘Ms’, there was now an option for those who wanted to avoid the ageist stereotypes of ‘miss’ and the possession connotations of ‘mrs’. But using ‘ms’ came with its own stigma. The rumour mill still suggests that women only use ‘Ms’ because they are divorced, are a lesbian (feminist), or have ‘failed’ to marry but are too old to stay a ‘miss’ anymore.
Even though this title has existed for almost 50 years, Ms is still coated in stigma that just won’t shake.
Is Ms even equal to Mr?
There is no extended pronunciation of ‘Ms’. Many people end up saying something like ‘muzz’, which is short and abrasive. This suggests that ‘Ms’ is some sort of temporary or lesser title.
Where have I heard this before? Oh, yes. In ‘Mx’.
Ms with an extended form
After interviewing a woman in her 40s, she explained that the pronunciation ‘misses’ has too many connotations in the older generation, and could not be reclaimed. Women want to distance themselves from sexist archaic titles and have found Ms to be the solution.
So how do we make ‘Ms’ more official sounding?
Solution - ‘Ms’ could stand for ‘Musses’.
This combines the current vague pronunciation of ‘muzz’ with length equal to ‘Mister’.
Mx with an extended form
Mx / Misc / Ind' are proposed gender-neutral titles. Mx has been more commonly accepted, but the problem lies in how to say it. I could only find ‘Mixter’ from one source, but this is very close to ‘mister’ and is therefore not title-neutral.
Brainstorming ideas, I needed something that carried similarities to ‘Misses’ and ‘Mister’, without favouring either.
Mix…something.
The problem with putting Mix at the beginning of the phrase is that it suggests that the person using this title could be ‘mixed’ in some way, which could be seen as offensive to many in the trans-community - they are not ‘mixed up’ about their gender, nor is their gender a ‘mix’ of male and female (which is possible, but this does represent the whole community).
So what else?
Both ‘Mister’ and ‘Misses’ begin ‘Mis’, so using ‘Mis’ as the starting point, I just needed to add that pesky ‘x’. Trying to keep the ‘Mis’ and the ‘e’ before the last syllable that denotes the second letter after the ‘M’ in the abbreviated form, I came up with: Mispex? Mistrex? Mislex? Mismex? Mis…sex? No.
Abandoning the ‘e’, I went down a serious rabbit hole of crazy phrases. After a month-long break, I finally had a brain-wave.
Mistix!
This contains similar elements to ‘Mister’ and the potential ‘Musses’ (that would completely replace Misses/Ms), whilst also being different enough to not be considered a blending of the two.
It sounds a lot like mystic… is this a problem?
What is a mystic? According to Oxford Languages ‘A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.’ Wow. Mistix’s (gender non-conforming/gender revolutionaries) are people who have a spiritual knowledge of truth beyond regular understanding? Yep, that sounds pretty accurate.
What about mystical? ‘1. relating to mystics or religious mysticism. 2. inspiring a sense of spiritual mystery, awe, and fascination.’ Damn. I mean I definitely have a sense of spiritual mystery, awe, and fascination when I see fellow gender-queer persons, so, spot on.
We found a solution??!?
This could be the new title situation:
Mister - Mr
Musses - Ms
Mistex - Mx
Alternatively, we can get rid of common titles in general, and just say names like we used to. But that would mean no-one would be able presume gender from names that sound gender-name-neutral. I love this idea, but it would probably cause world wide gender panic—just like they/them pronouns do currently.
Time to collaborate.
A language + gender revolution? Yes!
Start the conversation using the hashtag #titlerevolution and share this graphic!
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