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Comment by kjakm | Hacker News Reader

>> Following this serious incident, the operator introduced a daily check to ensure adult females were referred to as Ms on the relevant documentation, with a secondary check by Operations staff against passenger loads. A more formal system of checks was introduced on 24 July 2020.

Surely the solution is to fix the software? Miss is the 'appropriate' title for an unmarried woman or girl. Why not have a person select 'adult' or 'child' when booking (I'm pretty sure most airlines I fly with do this already).

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It appears to stem from wrong translation:

"The incident occurred due to a simple flaw in the programming of the IT system, which was due to the meaning of the title ‘Miss’ being interpreted by the system as a child and not an adult female. This was because in the country where the system was programmed, Miss is a child and Ms is an adult female."

Not sure what the country in question is - the report doesn't name it.

I assume the UK, since the location is given as Birmingham Airport and it's a British-registered plane.

Okay but that literally isn't a social convention that holds in the UK.

Nope. That assumption is wrong.

> The system programming was not carried out in the UK, and in the country where it was performed the title Miss was used for a child, and Ms for an adult female, hence the error.

That seems correct though - Miss is the appropriate title for a under 18y old.

In what country is Miss used for under 18 and Ms. for over? In the US and UK, Miss just means "unmarried woman" no matter the age. So yes, its appropriate for an under 18y old, but its also appropriate for an over 18 year old.

I cannot quite exclude another idea, that the age-related framing of the mistake is simply a cover-up for a much more prosaic error, perhaps of embarassing quality.

"Cultural differences" is an easy scapegoat.

Yes, but you wouldn’t choose to use Ms. for a 8-year old.

So if you’re presented with Ms. and Miss as options in a form, and neither has to do with marriage status, it’s natural that Miss will refer to the young.

Dr. Doogie Howser would slip right through the cracks of your system.

A friend of mine mentioned she had this problem with US domestic carriers - this was maybe 20 years ago!

She used "Miss" to say unmarried female. Her ticket was for unaccompanied minor.

I'm pretty sure I give precise date of birth already every time I fly.

Miss. This is not how we do things around here /s

It's fascinating that this issue occurred; I'd be shocked if the gestalt of data doesn't have enough information to know every passenger's age.

Pure speculation on my part, but it may be a data-hiding issue - if they realized late in design that the passenger manifest system had to feed into the weight estimator, but the passenger manifest (for privacy reasons, or simple "Don't access more data than you need" coding best-practices reasons) only had access to passenger names, surnames, prefixes, and IDs.

It shouldn't have happened (clearly, that's the point an engineer should be pulling the red lever on schedule and doing the work to get the data that's needed to the service that needs it, including clearing legal hurdles for privacy, if necessary), but I can easily imagine it happening if quality took a back-seat to deadlines.

Yeah, you shouldn't be estimating weight based on a social nicety that's interpreted differently across cultures and by people of different generations.

Is there any way to fly without supplying your date of birth these days?

But if you’re after weight why ask for crude proxies for weight? Adult v child is worse than “age”. But why not ask for weight if you’re after it?

> Miss is the 'appropriate' title for an unmarried woman or girl.

Not since decades in the US at least. Women are not titled according to their marital status.

Miss Manners begs to differ.

I put it in quotes to try and avoid this type of retort. Whether or not they're still used or are now considered inappropriate, the meaning behind the terms hasn't changed. FWIW I still see the terms used occasionally in the UK with 'Master' being used for an unmarried male.

The explanation which you present as settled usage is wrong and dated. There are too many women who will (rightly in my view) take offense at being titled Miss or Mrs. — so using such titles is only "appropriate" if you are deliberately trying to anger some portion of the population.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jun/29/gender.uk

> Miss and Mrs are marks of the old world, reminders of women's second-class status as wives-to-be (Miss) or simply wives (Mrs). If you are a woman who doesn't use Ms - particularly a woman under 30 who has never even thought of it - then ponder this: how do you want to present yourself to the world? Are you an appendage or an appendage-in-waiting? Don't be branded and marked by old-world convention. Let's kick against those fools at companies such as Atlantic Data. Let's put two fingers up to employers and bureaucrats who want to define us by our marital status. Choose Miss and you are condemned to childish immaturity. Choose Mrs and be condemned as some guy's chattel. Choose Ms and you become an adult woman in charge of your whole life.

Is the link your best available evidence?

The link is an example of a woman eloquently explaining why she prefers "Ms". It is not meant as "evidence" to support my assertion that there are many such women, as that's uncontroversial in most circles.

However, HN is overwhelmingly male (and threads like these illustrate why it is likely to stay that way), so what is obvious elsewhere may not be obvious here.

> so using such titles is only "appropriate" if you are deliberately trying to anger some portion of the population.

It seems to me that the passengers themselves were selecting their own title.

> There are too many women who will (rightly in my view) take offense at being titled Miss or Mrs. — so using such titles is only "appropriate" if you are deliberately trying to anger some portion of the population.

I still say sir, mam, mister, and miss (Mrs is generally considered unneeded and overly formal) because I come from a culture that finds them not only to be appropriate but pretty standard, especially when dealing with strangers. You find that declaring them universally acceptable is wrong, but if you came to my state you'd also be equally wrong, and maybe rude.

I do understand that peoples attitudes over generations will change about words. That seems to be the natural evolution of languages, but it also seems we've never overtly adopted a system that deprecates language outside of outrage, which seems inappropriate in itself if you're getting angry with someone who is going out of their way, in their mind, to treat you with respect.

I actually thought Master referred to a child male. I didn't realize it was the male unmarried equivalent of the old Miss.

My family has an interesting habit of addressing mail to my children by these titles. I don't know why or when they started it, but I myself, was never addressed as Master, yet my son is.

I may have been wrong. Apparently it varies by country but in the UK Master is a male < 18 and in the US < 12. I have had it used in relation to myself though when I was in my 20’s so convention around it seems a bit unclear.

What title do you use then?

Ms. Sounds like "Mizz".

> miss noun (2)

> Definition of miss (Entry 3 of 4) 1 capitalized a —used as a title prefixed to the name of an unmarried woman or girl

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/miss

It’s still definitely used and taught here. Maybe that’s a regional thing?

Well, an unmarried woman is "supposed to be" (if we are going to care about these ridiculously sexist honorifics) "Ms" (and the software specifically did work if this was used).

Ms. is actually the title that was promoted as a less-sexist alternative to Miss/Mrs. which, like Mr., does not depend on marital status.

Miss is the one specific to unmarried women.

I believe Ms. is also used in cases where you are unsure of marital status and don't want to 'offend' by assuming either Miss or Mrs.

Even if you guess the marital status "right", you will still offend many. Why should women be defined according to marital status, especially when men are not?

Unmarried men occasionally get the title 'Master' although I've only come across that in more formal situations.

I also never said we should or shouldn't use the terms. I don't have an opinion on that and it's not a debate or argument I'm going to waste my time on. I was simply explaining how they are conventionally used. This kind of thing was taught in schools as recently as 20 years ago as part of explanations on how to write and format letters.

IIRC the title Master is for boys 12 and under.

Interesting! I've come across it in so few places in my life (and not recently) so I wasn't aware.

Edit:

It seems using it until the age of 12 is a convention in the US. Using it until 18 is the convention in the UK. Another argument for why software shouldn't make decisions using terms that can mean different things to different people :)

>Mr. not depending on marital status

Not anymore, that is. It used to be an abbreviation for two appellations, one of which was associated with an unmarried gentleman. It's rarely used outside of the British Commonwealth, anymore. Except on Fresh Prince, of course.

I suppose the other appellation you are referring to is “Master”, but I understood its standard abbreviation to be M., not Mr., and it to be conventionally used for boys too young to be addressed as Mister (and before that, it was the term from which Mister was derived, and, before that, a title of guild rank), not a general title of unmarried (gentle- or otherwise) men.

Nope, it's definitely Mr., which possibly explains why "Master" practically disappeared. And while it may have been used to address boys, it could be comparable to Mme and Mlle in French. An older but still unmarried woman would be addressed as madame, but the marriage distinction still exists otherwise. "Master Bruce (Wayne)" was definitely not a boy, as an example in (something like) literature.

I actually thought Ms. was not promoted as less-sexist, but as a way to handle divorcees, and eventually merged to be a marital status-independent title. I see now that I was wrong [0].

I got this impression from my father. When I was little I would help stamp and address sales mailers he would send out, and he always used Ms. When I asked him, he said start with Ms. and let them correct you if they want something different. But, some divorced women get angry at being referred to as Mrs.

[0] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/ms-mrs-miss-difference/

Miss is also used for unmarried women as well in many places. It’s even in the title of events like Miss World for example

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