That's not my name! Making sensible decisions when asking for a user's title

name · 6 comments · 150 words · Viewed ~278 times.

Back in the good old days, when men were real men - and people like you knew their place - the world was simple.

There were three titles to choose from: Mr, Mrs, and Miss. Perhaps also Dr if you were feeling fancy.

But these fucking millennials with their "Ms" and "Mx" - amirite?!!?

Anyway, I was signing up to a service recently which wanted my title. I didn't think they needed a proxy for my gender, marital status, education level, or military rank - so I picked "Prefer not to say". Simples.

And then immediately got this email from them.

Email which says "Hi Prefer not to say Eden."

Slow clap, Virgin Wines, slow clap.

Bonus Track

6 thoughts on “That's not my name! Making sensible decisions when asking for a user's title”

2021-05-13 12:35

Paul Curry said on twitter.com:

lmao

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2021-05-13 12:37

Zoë Turner said on twitter.com:

When data collection on titles goes wrong! Funny but worrying!

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2021-05-13 12:39

Neil Brown said on twitter.com:

Oh, this is good.

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2021-05-13 13:49

Jon said on twitter.com:

Not just title. The whole firstname lastname thing is nonsense if you, as most do, deal with people outside of an English speaking context.

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2021-05-13 14:14

Alex says:

I remember working for the Leeds Permanent in the 90's that they had a drop down list of about 54 titles. As you imply above, military ranks covered quite a lot of them!

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2021-05-14 11:04

Merton Hale says:

I have a friend who is doing "gender studies." Not something i really thought about until we were discussing it over a few glasses of wine. Since then I have been aware of the number of times, when creating an "account" with some org online and they ask my gender. The same is true for many "official" orgs.
I can't think of a single instance (except for medical things that involve a doctor) where it is necessary to know the gender of the person. Totally unnecessary.
Same for asking birthdate. Ones real birthdate is rarely ever needed except for very official reasons. But frequently we are asked. I always enter, 1 April 1946.

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