Gym thinks only men can be Drs

I don't mind having drop-down lists if they include the option of "none" - but they rarely do.

It may or may not be an easy fix, but it's very unlikely that the gym code it in house so that's almost a side issue (the support lead times may be long, the code may be a bit 'mad' & it could be insanely complicated).

I note that in the recent Metro article, the gym in question have apologised, admitted it's a bug occurring between two systems and they are working to fix it. This is of course what should have happened in the first place, but IME first line (non-technical) customer support often have not got the skills to deal with this type of issue effectively.

It's interesting some of the chat upthread (serious and otherwise) about the multitude of titles. When I left my last role, there was a hug push towards restricting free text fields and using drop downs (for valid reasons in that "x status = ." may not be what one wants to see if one is being audited, for some values of X). That absolutely relies on the code being sensible though...

We're presently having a group hug, Olivia. Honest.

She was named as the first Man of the Year??

FFS.

Well, you learn something new every day!

Also in the US Navy, Grace Hopper was a rear admiral, and is very important in computing history. In 1969, she was named as the first Computer Sciences Man of the Year by the Data Processing Management Association in the USA.

That too shows the default is male, even when it's a woman, and with their very first award, they could have changed it to something that wasn't gender-specific, and they wouldn't have ever had to change it again, whether man or woman.

Floppityflop wrote - "I don't think there are any female Admirals yet".

It's true that there haven't been any female admirals in the Royal Navy yet, but the second-highest ranking officer of the much bigger and much more powerful US Navy is also its first female admiral, Michelle Howard.

There's one in the US Navy Here

I don't think there are any female Admirals yet but it can't be too long before there are. There are female Commanders, for instance.

I am generally known as Kyria here in Greece Ebearhug

How about Cm - Comrade

or Ct - Citizen

Both to be used for everyone regardless of gender or age.

Or, if we are on better terms: Fd - Friend (people do use the Greek word for friend as a term of address here)

According to Wikipedia, the font of all human knowledge, Moseigneur is still used as an honorific at the royal courts of Europe in place of YRH.

Every day is a school day.

Don't think there are Viceroys anymore, think they're now known as Governors-General. And the one in Australia tends to keep his mouth shut after the shenanigans in 75.

The only Monseigneur I can think of is Bruce Kent, so I would say it's right these days that it's only high-ranking Catholic clergy.

I think in these days of globalisation, if we're allowing all sorts of titles, we should be including M, Mme, Herr, Frau, Sr, Sra...

Are there still Viceroys anywhere? Or did they go with the end of colonialism?

My favourite titles are the ones used by people who are descendants of the Bourbon or Stuart monarchies or similar royal lines that came to a sticky end. They often run to paragraphs not just a simple drop down menu option.

I should read it, then. Thanks.

Jeanne yes I did know that but thank you for assuming I didn't.

In a modern context I think one is unlikely to encounter a "Monseigneur" who is not a high ranking member of the Catholic clergy ( who may or may not be French)

Yup, I liked it. Gives Mary a good chit.

still, it just means 'my lord' in Old French.

ask - yeah, I think he was. Is the book any good?

I'm reading Alison Weir's biog of Mary Boleyn at the moment. Thomas Boleyn comes across as a really unpleasant guy.

It wasn't originally to do with the clergy. I've only come across it and used it in relation to Catholic clergy.

It's not originally to do with clergy. I adore him using it, though. Wolf Hall is really subtle on things like that.

Ah, I didn't know it was a clergy thing! Thomas Boleyn uses it for his vanity title in Wolf Hall.

Well, linguistically it's madame (my lord/my lady). But they're not equivalent, both because of the clergy thing and because, in origin, the phrase is denoting your position in a society that has a hefty gendered power differential.

I can't remember if it includes Monseigneur but the drop down menu for The Royal Ballet at Covent Garden has an impressively long list of titles.