Date:    Thu, 5 Mar 1998 14:46:37 -0500
<br>From:    Beverly Flanigan  flanigan[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]OAK.CATS.OHIOU.EDU 
<br>Subject: Re: Ms.
<br>
<br>Our department chair(man) always signs himself 'Chair' or 'Chairperson'
<br>(ah, those enlightened linguists!).  Again, I don't really think the change
<br>is as problematic as suggested, nor has there been (re: Alan) "widespread
<br>reinterpretation" of 'Ms.'
<br>
<br>At 11:59 AM 3/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
<br> At 11:33 AM -0500 3/5/98, Alan Baragona wrote:
<br>  JANE M SPALDING-JAMIESON wrote:
<br>   
<br>  snip
<br>   
<br>    These experiences brought me to this conclusion:
<br>   
<br>    - When you live in a more traditional community, perhaps only
<br>    divorced or homosexual women, who have to brave being different
<br>    anyways, would use a less traditional term such as Ms.
<br>    - This may lead to the conclusion by others in such a community, that
<br>    the meaning of Ms. ACTUALLY IS "divorced, widowed or homosexual
<br>    woman."
<br>  
<br>  This seems to me to be a very reasonable conclusion about what is going
<br>  on socially and psychologically.
<br> 
<br> Maybe the generalization is something like [- paradigmatic] or [marked],
<br> or something along those lines, where the interpretation of these notions
<br> will vary from community to community.  Even within the
<br> urban/academic/middle-class culture most of us operate in, there seems to
<br> be a tendency to use Ms. (in non-business-envelope contexts) for unmarried
<br> adult woman (replacing Miss) and for married women who retain their maiden
<br> name (replacing an already awkwardly extended use of Miss or an even more
<br> awkward extension of Mrs.), and for divorced women who either retain their
<br> ex-husband's name or revert to their maiden name.  In the first of these
<br> subcategories, "Ms." does often seem to convey [+feminist], in the others
<br> its use is for women in non-prototypical or non-conventional situations.
<br> 
<br> 
<br>    - Obviously this was not the intent of those who first coined the
<br>    term! And hopefully we can continue to preserve its original sense,
<br>    that of NOT classifying women by their marital status.
<br>   
<br>  
<br>  Which leads to the question of whether or not the term's originally
<br>  intended use is salvageable in the face of widespread reinterpretation.
<br>  
<br> The same problem that extends to e.g. "chairperson" or "spokesperson",
<br> typically now used specifically for women in those roles rather than for
<br> people of irrelevant sex.
<br> 
<br> Larry
<br> 
<br>