A council has voted against adopting gender-neutral terms and says there is "nothing wrong with the English language".
The plan to use "Mx" instead of Mr or Mrs was thrown out by officials.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council also rejected a motion that suggested dropping terms such as chairman in favour of "chair".
The proposal was for gender-neutral language to be used in all written and verbal communication.
Councillors behind the plan said the move by the Dorset council, which employs 5,000 people, would emulate the civil service and help promote equality.
But others said the motion was "ill-considered" and there was "nothing wrong with the English language".
The motion was rejected by full council on Tuesday.
Unity Alliance councillor L-J Evans, who regionally proposed the motion, said they were "very, very saddened" that the council had not backed the move she had proposed.
Cllr Evans said: "By moving to gender-neutral language we avoid implying that one gender is the norm and help tackle unconscious bias.''
He previously said: "The use of masculine and feminine words to cover people, regardless of gender or sex, is unnecessary, inaccurate and tends to reinforce historic gender stereotypes.
"Gender-neutral writing is about clarity, inclusion, equality and would help to prevent unconscious bias.
"Generally, when letters are sent to a wider audience they are addressed to 'Dear resident' anyway.
"If somebody writes to us using a specified pronoun of course we will use that. But some names are ambiguous.
''A move to "Mx" is more of a general term that could replace Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms."
Comments had poured in on social media against the proposal being rejected.
One said: "What nonsense. Better spending their time giving a good service to the population."
A second added: "Pretty soon the police will be chastised for using feminine or masculine pronouns.
"It may be politically incorrect to use pronouns, but I kinda think it is dehumanizing instead of inclusive to stop using identifying pronouns."
A third said: "This is getting pathetic now. Perhaps I'll get offended if you don't call me female. How are they going to deal with that! Load of b****cks."
"No wonder I can't get anyone from the council to sort the trees out by my property I've been trying for 18 months and all there worried about is gender neutral correspondence, utter disgrace," a fourth added.
A fifth said: "Then we can have a Gender neutral enforcement officer who will need an office and an assistant and then maybe a manager ( is manager allowed) and on it goes."
In a debate over the change, Liberal Democrat Richard Burton said young people would be "flabbergasted" by the use of terms like "madam chairman".
"We do need to move on and make ourselves slightly more modern," he said.
Conservative Ann Stribley said she would not want to be referred to as "chair".
"That is a seat for one person, usually made of wood, metal or plastic, has four legs, sometimes with upholstery," she added.
Fellow Tory Tony O'Neill said the proposal was "ill-considered".
He said: "There is little wrong with the English language. There are more important issues to hand."
Leader of the Conservative-run administration Drew Mellor said he "absolutely endorsed the spirit" of proposed changes to the council's constitution.
"The process hasn't been the right way to do this," he added.
