I noticed something about all the English text books at the junior high schools I work at here in Japan. They teach the reader that the titles for men and women are "Mr." and "Ms.", the latter pronounced "Miz". No mention is made of "Miss" and "Mrs.". I told one of the teachers I work with that this is by no means reflective of my experience as a native English speaker in the U.S. But as I thought about it, I wondered if I had the appropriate background to speak to the issue. I see "Ms." regularly on online news sites, I'd just totally forgotten it was pronounced "Miz", I always thought it was an abbreviation of "Miss". I'd been disabused of this before and, as I now recall, soon forgot again, probably because I can recall no instance of anyone actually using the pronunciation "Miz" in real life. But how many opportunities have I had? When I was in university and community college before that, anyone referred to by their last names were "Professor" or occasionally "Doctor". When I worked at J.C. Penney, everyone went by their first names, even the store manager. I referred to everyone by first names in my teaching jobs in the U.S. The last time I can positively remember using Mr., Miss, or Mrs. is high school. I don't remember any "Miz" in those days and clearly remember plenty of "Miss" and "Mrs." I graduated in 1997. Could things have really changed so much since then? According to many of the sites that come up in google, they have. But I also see sources which claim they haven't and generally the difference in opinion on sources lines up with their political bias. I checked other countries, too, and found an Australian site where women polled were under the impression that "Miz" was reserved for divorced women and possibly lesbians.
The argument in favour of "Miz", a controversy I thought, until recently, had died in the '90s, seems to be that a woman is made implicitly subservient to men by adopting her husband's name. I know there are occasions where a husband has adopted his wife's name instead, though. Why isn't the answer to give men a marriage dependent honorific? It seems as much a commentary on the value of marriage, the concept of creating a single unit from two individuals, as gender. What last names should the children of a marriage have? Should they have to pick a side when they come of age?
In any case, I'm not convinced the English text books are conveying an accurate idea of native speaker English. I've noticed that ping-pong is referred to as "pinpon" in Japanese but the English textbooks force students to say "table tennis", I suspect because "ping pong" is trademarked. Who knows what other interests are invested in these text books?
Twitter Sonnet #1481
The ghost of curry walks despite its heart.
Thematic trolls traverse the plastic wood.
The panicked horse was hit by poison dart.
Alone, the playful maiden lately stood.
A cube of sand could crush a cherry dream.
The errant knife presaged the ribbon ring.
To lee, the prow's unlike the dame she'd seem.
Electric green permits the car to sing.
The image pizza blurred our waking talk.
A question card was cut to fill the class.
A phase around the mountain heeled the walk.
A team of horses led her 'cross the pass.
Evolving words are clamped in boiling lard.
The language fits a tiny index card.
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