Exercise 1

Let's fill out an official form!
We have all the information we need, except for the categories. Fill in the blanks below with the appropriate category. Some of these terms were used in the conversation you just heard, some were not!

Name: Bob Tiberius Carter
Address: 175 San Felipe Way, San Francisco, California
of : November 11th, 1959
: American
status: Married (not used in the conversation)
: Male (not used in the conversation)

I don't know

Let's fill out an official form!
We have all the information we need, except for the categories. Fill in the blanks below with the appropriate category. Some of these terms were used in the conversation you just heard, some were not!

Name: Bob Tiberius Carter
Address: 175 San Felipe Way, San Francisco, California
Date 1 of birth 2: November 11th, 1959
Nationality 3: American
Marital 4 status: Married (not used in the conversation)
gender 5: Male (not used in the conversation)

1 Date: "Date of birth" (or DOB) is commonly required on official forms (applications, taxes, legal documents, etc). In this conversation, lawyer Bethany Belovin reports that Horatio Oléré's "date of birth" is unknown. Note that the terms "date of birth" and "birthday" have slightly different meanings: Date of birth indicates the day, month and year of birth, while "birthday" often only refers to the day and month.

2 birth: A "birth" refers literally to the beginning of someone's life, and figuratively to the beginning of any event. Example: My entire family was present at the birth of my son. In the figurative sense: The birth of the Art Nouveau movement was in 1880. The noun "birth" comes from the verb "to bear". "Date of birth" (or DOB) is commonly required on official forms (applications, taxes, legal documents, etc).

3 Nationality: "Nationality" describes a person's country of origin, (but not necessarily their citizenship!). Nationality is determined by the country in which you were born, not necessarily where you have "citizenship" (legal working and living status)! In this conversation, Bethany Belovin states that Horatio's nationality is "unknown".

4 Marital: "Marital Status" is a category commonly found on official forms. This category describes a person's familial situation, and possible answers are: single, married, divorced, widowed (spouse has died) etc.

5 gender: The category used to ask for the "sex" of a person filling out a form is sometimes titled "gender", though it is occasionally titled "sex". Possible responses to this category are: male and female, etc.

Exercise 2

Luna's title is "Ms": she wants to be addressed as "Ms Luna DeLune".

This tells us that Luna:

is an unmarried woman.

This is incorrect. The title which tells us that a woman is definitely not married is "Miss". "Ms" does not convey any information about a woman's marital status.

is a married woman.

This is incorrect. The title which tells us that a woman is definitely married is "Mrs". "Ms" does not convey any information about a woman's marital status.

is a divorced woman.

This is incorrect. "Ms" does not convey any information about a woman's marital status. Divorced woman can refer to themselves as "Miss", "Mrs", or "Ms".

does not want others to know her marital status.

This is the correct choice here. The feminine title "Ms" is used by women who do not wish to tell people whether or not they are married, simply by their name! It's a fairly modern innovation, but a very useful one. Example: "Susan was sick of men hitting on her when she called herself Miss Bliss. Now, she calls herself 'Ms Bliss".

Marital status meaning in English

Definition

Examples

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