A question which just occurred to me

[commodorified]

I am enthusiastically in favour of addressing people as they wish to be addressed, and referring to them by the pronouns, etc, that they prefer, or, if lacking data, using 'they'.

And there has, thankfully, been a lot of discussion of the matter to help me get this right.

So now I am wondering about formal modes of address for general and specific addressing of people whose genders are non-binary.

staranise sensibly points out that when addressing groups, "Honoured Guests" may reasonably be used along with, or instead of, "Ladies and Gentlemen/Mesdames et Messieurs". (ETA anne adds "Amis Distingués")

Suitable substitutes for "Sir", "Madam" "Ma'am", "Mr." "Ms", "M.", "Mmme", and so forth, however, elude me.

Has anyone seen anything good on this?

Comments

[niqaeli]

I've yet to figure any good ones out, something that drove me up the WALL when I was working hotel front desk. I wanted neutral ways to politely address people and they eluded me utterly.

The closest I've found is, if they've a profession, you can sometimes go with that as a form of address. The obvious examples are doctor and reverend/pastor, but it works for some others as well. Like, with teachers (particularly at university but in most contexts it won't read too weird): Professor [Surname] is an excellent way to go. (It also neatly side-steps the PhD/Dr. issue if you're unsure of they have obtained a doctorate or not!) Coach and chef are also very natural. It's by no means always usable even with professions that are natural for it, because context -- but it IS helpful.

That said, I have seen Mx. used in print as a neutral address, but I suspect it would read very unnaturally to attempt to use it in spoken conversation.

So yeah, Imma track this sucker to see if anyone has better suggestions because seriously. DROVE. ME. NUTS. I did not want to have to blithely assume a gender for people to politely address them but basically that's what it seemed to come down to.

(When making reservations? I always defaulted to MM. as opposed to MR. or MS.; while technically it expands to 'MR. and MRS.' functionally nobody else at the organisation knew that that's what it stood for making it the most visually neutral option we had, barring 'DR.')

[naraht]

Like, with teachers (particularly at university but in most contexts it won't read too weird): Professor [Surname] is an excellent way to go. (It also neatly side-steps the PhD/Dr. issue if you're unsure of they have obtained a doctorate or not!)

That doesn't work in the UK, at least, because there are many university lecturers (with and without doctorates) who are not Professors. (It's a title reserved for a very few.)

[niqaeli]

Regional difference are so fascinating! I'd not known that about UK universities.

[commodorified]

Whereas in Canadian universities Professor is standard, and the running joke is "Dr. just means they accepted my diss; Professor means I GOT A JOB."

[staranise]

AHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahahahahahahaha *despairing gasp*

[random]

Actually, I'd say that's changed with the massive growth in sessional lecturers. I think of professors as tenured, which is a huge minority by now.

[ashkitty]

Was about to say the same thing--Professor in the UK is a specific and extremely prestigious title.

[commodorified]

Also, I do not normally solicit for links but more heads are better; send your rl over if you like, by all means!

[niqaeli]

Boosted! :)

[sollers]

My problem with MM is that the French part of my head automatically reads it as "messieurs".

[commodorified]

Yes; it wouldn't work here for the same reason. "M." has the same problem.

[commodorified]

I DO like "Mx"; print is a big part of the difficulty in my mind; in conversation there's more flex, more ways to ask or be told, but an envelope, once addressed, stays addressed, and it's literally the first thing that the person sees from you, so.

[niqaeli]

The context I ran across it in, the person bringing it up didn't care for it because it felt a bit to exotic, rather than being an ordinary workaday. Xs being not super common in English. I don't know that I agree with that assessment (or that I think it would continue to ping that way if it saw regular usage), but it's worth noting.

My particular frustration was in addressing people particularly as a hotel front desk agent -- a brief, retail interaction between total strangers. I was trained to use a guest's name at least three times in any given interaction; it's extremely difficult to do that politely without assuming a gender. (We can argue about whether it's a good thing that we expect retail workers to address all guests as their social superiors, but I tried and found I cannot make myself drop the formality in that context.)

I mean, I cheerfully use all the other options of flexibility for to address people in informal or semi-formal conversation! It's really only within that narrow retail context that it was so impossible to negotiate.