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@Drew@radical.town No one is trying to own you.
Generally when we use language what matters is the meaning of the words in the here and now. Sometimes that is effected by the past in various ways, language is weird, often the modern day meaning has little resemblance to what it meant 500 years ago.
I am using those terms in the way the general public uses it, nothing more. The fact that it was used in some cultures int he past to denote a hierarchy is largely unrelated to its modern day use.
As for it not being a pronoun, thats a different issue. As with most words it would depend on how it is used. Int he sentence "Mister Freeman talks too much" Mister would **not** be a pronoun, you are right, however in the sentence "You talk too much mister" then it would be a pronoun. Remember a pronoun is a word that acts as a noun but is a substitution for a proper noun. In that sentence mister would be in its pronoun form.
In fact the more I think about it the more I realize mister is really never, in and of itself, used to show hierarchy in modern society. Though there is a closely related practice that is. That is, when one person shows more respect to the other than what is given in return. This respect can be expressed in many ways, one of which is using language that denotes respect to the other where that language isnt returned, such as the use of the term "mister" or "sir". Similar practices are using someones last name where they use your first name. In some asian cultures it is expressed by how deeply you bow, one person bowing deeper than the other.
But this is not the same as saying mister denotes hierarchy, in and of itself it doesnt.
@Drew@radical.town
