"Mx" Replacing "Mr" etc.

When the title “Ms.” was invented, it was meant to replace “Mrs.” and “Miss”. This alternative was promoted by feminists and others who believed that a woman’s marital status should not be a matter of public concern. The logic was that if “Mr.” is enough for men, why shouldn’t “Ms.” be enough for women? The new title was ironically introduced as a third choice for women on forms etc., instead of replacing the other two terms altogether. Men did not have so many choices, yet they were not bothered. More recently, however, some men – and women – have become annoyed with all these old titles. For them, not only is marital status not to be revealed, but gender itself. “Mx” is the title now beginning to replace the conventional titles, including “Ms”.

Transgender people, and some who do not identify with either gender, are promoting the use of “Mx”, to the extent that it is now accepted by government departments in the UK, as well as banks and some universities, such as Birmingham, Cambridge, and Oxford; the Oxford English Dictionary is also on its way to incorporating it (“Mr, Mrs, Miss... and Mx: Transgender People Will be Able to Use New Title on Official Documents”).

Stan Carey says that the term “Mx”, which has been around since the 1970s, is a gender neutral alternative. The Macmillan Dictionary has already added the term, after it was submitted to its crowdsourced dictionary (“ ‘Mx’—A New Gender Neutral Title”). The web site “Nonbinary.org” , “arguing for equal access to employment, services and medical treatment for those who don't fit the gender binary”, encourages the use of various gender neutral titles, including “Mx”; among these are “Ind” (for individual), “M”, “Misc”, and “Msr”.

Apparently, the new title has been well received in Australia, according to ABC News, yet language expert Professor Roland Sussex believes it sounds awkward, and Lisa Sinclair of Genderqueer Australia rightly notes that changing a word will not necessarily change mentalities: “As an international idea it might work, but it's going to take a bit more than a gender-neutral pronoun to overcome the very gendered societies we have in the West and around the world. Having a gender-neutral pronoun is very nice, but there's much more to having acceptance of gender-neutral people than just a word" ("Mx Flagged as Possible Title for Transgender and Other Gender Neutral People, According to Oxford English Dictionary”). On the other hand, Merriam-Webster is still watching the new term, uncertain whether it will catch on in the US or whether it might take decades for it to be accepted, like “Ms” (“A Gender-Neutral Honorific”). Whatever the outcome, flirting with such new terms is merely another example of language evolution in line with perceived political correctness.

Politically Correct Language

When David Cameron was recently criticised for using the word “swarm” to describe illegal immigrants entering Britain, a fuss followed. For many, the use of the term is politically incorrect while for others it is neutral. Cameron had told ITV News that the immigration problem had worsened because “… you have got a swarm of people coming across the Mediterranean, seeking a better life, wanting to come to Britain because Britain has got jobs, it’s got a growing economy, it’s an incredible place to live”.

Human rights groups, including the Refugee Council, were the first to object, referring to the language used as “dehumanizing” and “extremely inflammatory”;  Labour leadership candidates described the usage as “disgraceful” and “not prime ministerial”; and Labour’s interim leader remarked that Cameron should remember “he is talking about people, not insects”. On the other hand, some people, such as Brian Maloney, citing the Merriam-Webster dictionary, found the term neutral, commenting that the incident was used to “fan the flames of anti-Conservative Party anger”. To back his claim, he cited examples of usage from the dictionary, which were not necessarily derogatory, such as “swarms of sightseers” and “a swarm of tourists” (“David Cameron Under Fire for Using ‘Swarm’ to Describe Illegal Immigrants’”).

Jeremy Butterfield, a lexicographer, has questioned the usage of “swarm” to describe immigrants, on both his personal blog and that of the Oxford Dictionaries. He notes that while many dictionaries do not indicate a pejorative sense for the word, the OED does (“A very large or dense body or collection; a crowd, throng, multitude. (Often contemptuous)”). Butterfield concludes that the connotations of the word are as follows:

 ■a large group;

 ■a compact group;

 ■a group in energetic motion;

 ■(perhaps optionally) confused motion; and

 ■ the group is undesirable.

 

Butterfield finds the critics’ reactions understandable though, to him, the possibility that Cameron did not mean the word in the pejorative, inflammatory sense is plausible. In any case, the example shows the importance of word choice in the public sphere, the language of politics, while illustrating the politics of language, especially in critics’ reactions.