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Cndlncs
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Dead: Sheila Michaels, at 78. Who? Well, she didn't exactly invent it herself, but history traces it back to her. What's "it"? Ms. The salutation "Ms." And it happened on radio! She was an ardent, fairly extreme feminist for the time, and she was on a radio show on WBAI/New York when she raised the idea that Ms., which had been in use by stenographers, could be a better salutation than the marriage-dependent "Mrs." and "Miss." She pronounced it "mizz." And Gloria Steinem heard it, and the rest is linguistic history. Hey, how many words have YOU popularized? (New York Times)
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