married to the worm

> game you wishlisted is on sale!

> wow, 30% off!

im seeing people fact-check this in the notes so i'll add that the full inscription is "marcosior maternia" and if you search that in google scholar you'll find lots of sources. it might not be true but it's definitely real, by which i mean that scholars don't know for sure what "marcosior maternia" means but this is a common interpretation. it's written on a spindle whorl (little weights that are used in spinning) and there's actually a lot of spindle whorls from roman gaul that have sort of amatory inscriptions on them, so they might have been gifts for lovers but it's not clear, but anyway a sexual meaning is perfectly expected for this type of object, and maternia looks like a woman's name in either the nominative or instrumental case, and marcosior looks like a passive verb related to the word for 'horse' in a desiderative or future form. so "i want to be ridden by maternia", "i will be ridden by maternia", and "maternia will be ridden" are some of the plausible interpretations.

easy to pronounce, even for children (though kids 4 & younger may pronounce it more like "mayd" or "maygh")

ONE SYLLABLE!!! ("individual" is too goddamn LONG.) you have to be able to say it quickly and casually

ends in a soft vowel sound, so it'll flow right into the next word ("ind" halts the whole sentence)

fits neatly into the existing structure as a relative of master/mistress that can be abbreviated down to an m and one other letter

distinct enough that it can't be mistaken for either gendered term (if you call me mix I'll kill you. it sounds like miss with extra steps)

wizard.

drawbacks:

there aren't any

They went NUTS for it! Not only did they love it, but there was an immediate click in understanding about they/them pronouns *from the entire cohort* that I haven’t experienced in 3 years of programming.

And linking it back to the root words Mister and Missus as OP so wonderfully provided helped establish that using they/them or neopronouns isn’t just playing around or “Miss but different” the way it can be with Mx. I used to try to go by Teacher Day because I was still getting she/her’d all the time but that also came with the problems of the students only being able to see me in the role of Teacher and being intimidated by the educational institution and their grades (I don’t even work for the school I’m external staff I don’t even have WiFi access). And I’d still get she/her’d all the time.

As soon as I introduced Magister they saw that a nonbinary person could be an Adult with a *societal* role outside the binary. It was immediately visible in their ecstatic faces. And I didn’t get misgendered today.

But also see: Tumblr and Onceler.

Shit, im convinced if tumblr had been around during Captain Planet days there would’ve been fandomites horny for Looten Plunder:

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” - genesis

from White, Lynn. 1974. "The historical roots of our ecologic crisis" Ecology and religion in history, (New York :Harper and Row, 1974) >>

Man named all the animals, thus establishing his dominance over them. God planned all of this explicitly for man's benefit and rule: no item in the physical creation had any purpose save to serve man's purposes. And, although man's body is made of clay, he is not simply part of nature: he is made in God's image. Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen. As early as the 2nd century both Tertullian and Saint Irenaeus of Lyons were insisting that when God shaped Adam he was foreshadowing the image of the incarnate Christ, the Second Adam. Man shares, in great measure, God's transcendence of nature. Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia's religions (except, perhaps, Zorastrianism), not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends. At the level of the common people this worked out in an interesting way.

In Antiquity every tree, every spring, every stream, every hill had its own genius loci, its guardian spirit. These spirits were accessible to men, but were very unlike men; centaurs, fauns, and mermaids show their ambivalence. Before one cut a tree, mined a mountain, or dammed a brook, it was important to placate the spirit in charge of that particular situation,and to keep it placated. By destroying pagan animism, Christianity made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects.