Originally Posted by
langleybaston
My grandsons are Masters, and my granddaughters are Misses. Sounds very gender specific.
That would be the NOUN ‘master’ and not the ADJECTIVE ‘master’ in the case of Master Aircrew. There are actually 3 different definitions of master.
NOUN - as in “Master of the household”. That is a male derivative.
VERB - as in “to master something, which means to overcome it”. It is gender neutral.
ADJECTIVE - as in a modifying word for a NOUN that means “being skilled or highly proficient”. It can also be used used as a modifying word for a NOUN of “something from which duplicates are made”. It is gender neutral in both cases. This is where it is used for Master Aircrew - where “Aircrew” is the NOUN and “Master” is the gender neutral ADJECTIVE to modify the Aircrew NOUN to indicate the highest level of proficiency.
Even though our senior leaders are post-graduate educated, they seem to have failed to get a grasp of the English language as they have insisted on misusing the noun “Aviator” both in context and also the fact that it is the male derivative of what Aviatrix is for females. Secondly, which is odd and ironic, they are all “Master of Arts” from the Staff College but obviously don’t understand that it is gender neutral too, as it using the verb “to master” rather than the noun that they seem to get their pants in a twist about. Maybe it is Swindon Polytechnic after all??
