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Mage
I am legit going to use Magister as a replacement option for Mr/Mrs. It's formal, archaic, and gender neutral. That's the trifecta right there
I've seen enough posts related to etymology or historical use of words where they, either misrepresent the facts to fit a narrative or just make shit up, that I try to look it up my self. I also find etymology fascinating so that helps.
In this case they are absolutely right.
Both Mr and. Mrs,ms are derived from master and mistress (teachers) and both of those words stem from the Latin word Magister.
Edit: fun fact the English verb stick is the same word as the noun stick and comes from the same origin the Germanic word stik which also meant a piece of wood and to pierce/adhere or sharp. But wait it's older than that the Latin word stigare also means pierce. And share the same ancestry, namely indo-european. Turns out we humans have been talking about sticks for a long time.
...crap, I'm cis male and I wanna be addressed as "mage"...
You can just do that ya know. Just be a wizard. Tell people to address you as such. Don't even have to be trans you can change your name and everything
I work with magical lights that spring forrh from runes written in gold powered by ancient ichor and magic rocks.
...why not just "magister" and avoid a word that already has very strong, current connotations with fantasy?
I mean, mages are pretty cool. π§ββοΈ
Let's hit "magister" and then work our way down. I swear to god I'd change the shit out of my pronouns to fit mage.
The issue, I guess, is that Mr./Ms. have had centuries to be normalized into common use, whereas "magister" still holds a bit of prestige or honor to it. I'm just spitballin'. I'm definitely going to read more into this when I have some time.
Although it was also my first choice, magister is masculine. Latin is a gendered language (with more than just m/f) and AFAIK magister isn't neutral.
Magister does not change with gender tho, and generally it should not be a problem since we can just not consider the word gendered, the problem with gendered words is mostly given by social constructs, the word does not have any since it's long dead
It doesn't have to carry that genderedness into English.