I read that and thought "wtf?!??" I've always seen them as equal terms and have had the same disdain for most teachers irrespective of gender. There have been a few in my life who have been outstanding teachers. They were respected by all kids. Again this was irrespective of gender.

'Sir' comes from the Latin meaning 'senior', just as the old French 'sieur' did.

You'd think a Professor would check her facts.

An appropriate equivalent might be ma'am instead of miss.


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When I was at school, which is now an increasingly long time ago, all male teachers were Sir. Female teachers were Miss or Ma'am, depending on marital status.

I know it's perpetuating the patriarchy, but it worked. It didn't seem to do me any harm, or alter my views of the world.

No it's not.

"Sir" etymologically refers to a man who is older - senior (older) from Latin senex (old)
"Ma'am" etymologically refers to a woman who is in charge - mea domina

Senior also means in charge, you use it to talk about management staff in companies.

Miss definitely has a connotation which means "young" as well as unmarried.

It doesn't matter where the terms "came from", what matters is what they are used for now, and sir is what you use for a male teacher and miss is what you use for a female teacher, they are both marks of (equal) respect and formality, next argument.

Apple appear to be doing a good job with their most recent updates for iTunes and Mavericks.
iTunes 11.2 came out Thursday/Friday. 11.2.1 came out Friday/Saturday to fix a permissions issue that left the users folders set to universal access and in some cases could make them invisible. This update was apparently rolled into the Mavericks 10.9.3 update.

While I accept that it's partly my own fault because I'm not running Mavericks (how dare I) but I have the Mavericks installer on my machine for the time when it hits the point that I consider they seem to have managed to get it to be stable enough to be worth installing. Each time they bring out a 10.9.x update software update wants to re-download the installer, all 5.3+ GB of it. That, in and of itself, I don't have a particular problem with but on this occasion they obviously modified the 10.9.3 installer to incorporate the iTunes updates so SU downloaded the same installer twice, 10.64GB because I was fool enough to be on my Mac on Friday and Saturday.

One reason why I turn off the auto-download and wait a couple of weeks after updates are released. I was cautious about making the leap to Mavericks, waited until 10.9.2 before I upgraded but have to say it's been the smoothest system upgrade I've ever done. No problems at all with it. Which is surprising in itself.

I agree, though, that something's not quite right with Apple's software updates. Just last week they released the latest Security Update and then a couple of days later they released 10.9.3, which you guessed it, had this Security Update bundled into it! Why not just wait two days or bring 10.9.2 forward? They have separate teams working on different updates and software, but it appears that no one is managing them or planning the updates to coincide with each other.

All I can say is I'm glad I'm on an unlimited internet now!

Following the navis yesterday was a fail. Instead of taking us to the main entrance of the hospital, TomTom, Google and Nokia all took us to the wrong side of the campus, which would have been over a mile walk to the hospital itself and the visitor car park. Following the road signs was a lot better.

I always find that a combination of TomTom, road signs and common sense works best.

Not first formatting my new USB stick so that mobile devices would read it, and then putting data on it...

BBC Watchdog just stuck the boot into Sony - seems they'd been trying to fob customers off over Xperia screens so fragile they were breaking in pockets!

Depends on what pockets and 'just in pockets'? All smartphones have a disclaimer that they should not be carried in trouser pockets, for example, because the glass could break when you bend or sit down.

If it is shirt or jacket pockets, then that is bad, if it is people sitting on them, then they only have themselves to blame.

Struggled even to find this link http://www.xperiablog.net/2013/11/08/so ... aked-info/

Part of the Watchdog issue was that Sony knew damn well there were problems before now. Who doesn't put their phone in their trouser pocket unless sitting down at a table?