Let’s say there’s someone I want to call Mr/Ms/Mrs [Name], but I don’t know their gender, is there a title I can use that doesn’t assume their gender?
Too bad we can’t adopt the Japanese “-san” honorific, as it is gender neutral!
Slightly off topic but I really like the approach where the honorific is just dropped entirely. So just [Name]. No Mr/Ms/Mrs. It mostly doesn’t serve any purpose anyway.
I have started just using M. Like, “Dear M. Lastname”. I saw it being done in French and just adopted it for English too. No one’s complained yet. (Have also seen Mx. but figure that could be confusing.)
A sci-fi book from 1991 used that (Hyperion), and I thought it was just futurespeak. TIL!
Not a contemporary one, but during the French Revolution, they used ‘Citizen’ for everyone.
Which, in French, is “citoyen” (masculine) or “citoyenne” (feminine). Not a neutral gendered word.
