This may seem like a minor change to most readers — or perhaps a long overdue one — but the use of courtesy titles has divided newsrooms and journalism schools for decades.
, noting that Journal editors have discussed taking this step “for several years.”
Most news outlets long ago abandoned courtesy titles in regular news stories, many of them taking their lead from the stylistically influential Merrill Perlman, a former Times copy editor, remembers working on the 1999 version of the Times Stylebook, where a discussion arose about whether to continue using courtesy titles. “The answer was yes because it’s a sign of civility,” she said.
While courtesy titles may appeal to the urbane among us, their usage can also get very complicated, very fast. Far from static emblems of civility, courtesy titles have evolved with society’s changing prejudices and norms. They’ve been particularly fraught for women.Old newspapers would often refer to women by their husband’s names . Reporters eventually progressed to using women’s actual names but still insisted on classifying them by relationship status: “Mrs.” for the married, and “Miss” for unwed.
“You would not believe the protests, the outrage: ‘We can’t do it. It’s too hard to say,’” recalled Deborah Tannen, a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University.
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