QOF's Interesting Word of the Day
Ms: A title of courtesy prefixed to the surname of a woman, sometimes with her first name interposed (plural Mss).
Why it's interesting: It's most interesting because of the way the usage of this relatively new word seems to be changing. Firstly, I have noticed the pronounciation is moving away from 'mizz' and more towards 'muzz' (at least in England). Secondly, its application (again in England - can't speak for anywhere else) seems to be undergoing a subtle shift. It was popularised by the feminist movement as an alternative to 'Mrs' or 'Miss', with the argument that signalling a woman's marital status through her title is at best irrelevant and at worst discriminatory. However, I have noticed a shift away from these politicised origins; it is now commonly used by women who do not care for feminism but simply want to signal that they are not necessarily 'available', and their circumstances lie somewhere between the conventional 'Miss' and 'Mrs' situations. This includes unmarried mothers, whether or not they live with the father of their children, and women who are in a co-habiting relationship (usually those who also refer to their other half as their 'partner'); but this is by no means universal, or even accepted. Some 'Ms's no doubt still have political motives. I have noticed this especially in the junior members of the academic community, where women are very unlikely to have escaped some feminist influence. They also tend to be reluctant to relinquish the surname under which they have become known (however briefly), and they also have the unique advantage of a reasonable expectation that they can soon do away with that title altogether in favour of 'Dr'. The OED, despite a revised entry for 'Ms' in its new edition drafted in March 2003, has not picked up on the depoliticised aspects of its usage. This goes to show that English-speakers are still struggling to bend the language to accommodate the increasing number of lifestyles that are found acceptable to society.
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Where did all this come from then?
I studied English Language and Literature at Sheffield University for three years (1999-2002) and during that time I wrote many, many words, some of which were quite good. I thought it would be shame if no-one saw the words anymore, so below are links for some my undergraduate essays. They all received Firsts or 2:1s so you can copy them with equanimity. Speaking of which, here is a note of citation…
A note on citation
It doesn’t bother me much if you ‘borrow’ my ideas or even my words and don’t cite me. If you want to mention it in a footnote, this website will tell you the right way to do it. But remember – if you just cut’n’paste the whole thing then you’re only cheating yourself (not to mention your teachers, professors, fellow students and examining bodies). And more importantly, the frogs will hunt you down and kill you.
WARNING: END OF QUALITY CONTROL!
Everything beyond this point was done in my own time, for my own twisted interest, and has never been marked or otherwise assessed as being any good. So watch yourself :-)
This here is a brief analysis of government spending by department and taking into account GDP and inflation and things like that. It's in the form of a Powerpoint show, which you can download and save or view in your browser. If you do the latter you might want to make it full screen (press F11 now) because some of the graphs are quite fiddly.
