Translated from the Phlebotish

[gryphonsegg]

One of my preferred policy in writing secondary world fiction is to take some care not to base any fictional culture too closely on any one real world culture. Another preferred policy is not to use many made-up words for anything except character names and place names. I usually try to write so that status titles, clothing descriptions, names for courses of study, descriptions of psychic phenomena, and many other things are "translated" from a hypothetical otherworld language into English (or, much more rarely a loan word that most English-speaking SF/F fans would already be familiar with).



Now I'm working on this story/thought experiment about a mystery investigation in a matriarchal world. It has magic water too, but that's not a problem. Having characters refer to "the other water" is adequate for the purposes of discussing that aspect of the world. But I'm having real trouble coming up with courtesy titles that convey what I want to convey about the characters' ascribed social status and also don't sound clunky. In the main location of interest, I want to having characters thinking and speaking from the barely-noticed assumption that women have a general-purpose courtesy title that can be applied regardless of age or marital status (functionally "Ms." but with the long, entrenched cultural history of "Mister") while there exist different courtesy titles for married and unmarried men (with a common subtext that if a man isn't married by a certain age, there must be something wrong with him). Conceptually, this culture defines male characters in terms of their relationships with female characters, to the extent of assigning them titles that basically mean "Husband" and "Son." But I'm not finding it easy to come up with either a real world title that seems like an honest translation of the concept (using "Miss" for male characters seems like it would be too confusing) or a constructed title that doesn't sound forced and clumsy (actually calling someone "Son Pacile" doesn't feel right, even though it would be more conceptually accurate than the alternatives).

And yes, I know that not every patriarchal culture IRL makes a married/unmarried distinction in women's courtesy titles. But some of them do, and I'm trying to give this secondary some cultural diversity in simple, everyday things. (I'm also planning to build in some regional and temporal variation in just how bad things for the more amusing sex: In one placetime, the intragender distinction between "Husband" and "Son" is important because marriage increases a man's status and security in society. In a different one, there's only one title for men because men remain legally and culturally "sons" their entire lives, even after their mothers are dead and they've passed into someone else's guardianship. Elsewherewhen, nongendered titles are widely used because other divisions take precedence over sex/gender.)

Comments

[surrealistdreamer]

Some variation on Madame or Ma'am might work. Those titles seem to have a lot of weight to them to me though I could not know what I'm talking about. Just using Sir might work if you use Ma'am/Madame. Young Sir, Elder Sir, I dunno.

This might be stupid.

[gryphonsegg]

Those might work for very formal situations or for men related to landowners!

For commoners going about their normal business, I'm going for something a little less formal-sounding, something that my opposite number in that world would flinch at just a little bit the way I flinch a little at "miss."

[surrealistdreamer]

I don't flinch at Miss only because I've been called Ms. Merriam my whole life by Grampa. And several others on occasions. Eh.

[gryphonsegg]

It doesn't bother me when it comes from really old people or little kids. Everyone else, though . . . It's not so bad when it's "Miss Name," but when it's "miss" where I'm used to hearing "ma'am," that bothers me a lot more than I would dare let on (they're trying to be polite after all, after all). Maybe it's a side effect of growing up in the south, where "ma'am" generally applies regardless of age or marital status. Going from "ma'am" to "miss" feels like people's assumptions about my age and marital status now matter in contexts where they didn't used to matter.

[surrealistdreamer]

Hmmm, yeah. I didn't think about that.

[holyschist]

I think "Mistress" could work for women--that was essentially the all-purpose courtesy title for women until it split into the abbreviations "miss" and "mrs". Possibly with a "Mistress Firstname/Mistress Lastname" split for children/adults, if applicable.

For men, hmm, trickier. It's harder to split "master/mister" into two clearly different yet recognizable titles; you could use "mister" for unmarried men and "master" for married men, but with only one letter difference, that might not be distinct enough. "Sir" used as a title prior to a name carries pretty specific connotations of knighthood.

[gryphonsegg]

I was thinking almost exactly what you said! I'm considering using "Sir" to indicate honored status in societies where class or other distinctions often cut across gender distinctions, but I need something else for, say, a tailor to call a working-class guy who needs his pants mended.

[holyschist]

I guess you could do no honorific for unmarried men and honorific for married men, but that might be too subtle.

[lady_ganesh]

I don't think subtle's necessarily bad in this case-- it's one of the things we take for granted culturally, after all. If you make too big a deal out of it it starts seeming heavy-handed.

[holyschist]

The problem is that non honorific/honorific can also indicate familiarity, relative class, and other things besides married/unmarried. So perhaps "extremely ambiguous" is more appropriate that "subtle." I think it would go right past most people, who would just assume familiarity or another our-world meaning.

[lady_ganesh]

I think it would depend on the story and how much it might come up. Certainly a Granny Weatherwax-style correction could give context in a hurry.

[gryphonsegg]

Now I am imagining a female Sam Vimes. It is awesome.

[lady_ganesh]

You are entirely correct.