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Hack from Nowheresville
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Hack from Nowheresville
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I was talking about this with a friend. You know, when to use Mr, Miss, Ms, Mrs, Mdm, Sir...etc.... I've always thought it was Mr for a man, Miss for an unmarried woman, Mrs for a married woman who takes her husband's surname, Mdm for a married woman who continues to use her maiden name. Ms is a new entity for me, cos we seldom use it in writing. For example, when Lois marries Clark, is she Ms Lois Lane, Ms Lois Kent, Mrs Lois Kent, Mdm Lois Lane? Or all of the above? I'm not so interested as to which is the social norm; rather which ones are grammatically correct. How do you pronounce Ms? Exactly like you would say 'Miss'? I say it as "Miz", so it's not quite "Miss". Am I correct? One final question. My friend was telling me that he read a William Safire column some time ago and that apparently, there is a difference between Mr. and Mr(without the full-stop). The same goes with Mrs. and Mrs(without the full-stop). He tried to explain but he got me horribly confused. Can anyone clarify this? In Singapore, salutations are pretty traditional. In the civil service, married women are expected to take their husbands' surname (last name). For example, female teachers who get married automatically become Mrs [somebody]. Under very rare circmstances will they choose to keep their maiden names, because the official title we use is "Madam". We almost never use Ms in writing. (Ms seems to be restricted to conversation). Now you know why I'm confused.   metwin1
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Top Banana
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Someone, please, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think we in the US use Madam for a married woman who keeps her own name -- actually when I hear the word "Madam" I tend to think "prostetute" -- like Heidi Fleiss was the Hollywood Madam -- either that or Dear Sir or Madam as the salutation to a business letter. I've used Miss or Ms. (pronounced Miz) for married women who keep their own name and for single women. I think Lois was called Ms. Lane even before she was married, and she chose to keep her last name, as she said in the episode where Clark shrinks and Lois goes to her highschool reunion. So I believe she would still be called Ms. Lane after she was married. I sort of look at it as something of a feminist thing that men have only one salutation --Mr. -- and you can't tell if they are married or not. Women, with Miss and Mrs., you can automatically tell if they are married or not. It seems (at least to me) that it is slightly chauvinistic. That might not be the correct reason, though. It also might be just an american thing, but I don't think it is. I am pretty sure it is used elsewhere in the world. Actually, I am young and unmarried, and I tend to check Ms. in any form I have to fill out. Usually because I think Miss is a name that gives a connotation of a little kid (I know that's not true), and also because I like Ms. better. I also know that when I get married, I plan to keep my last name. It is unique, and starts with an uncommon letter, and I like it. Why should I have to take my husband's name if he isn't going to take my name  . Anyway, by the time I get married, I'd better be Dr. Laura U. (the U to show I am not the radio personality who I hate)  I don't know the answer to your other questions. I never realized there was a difference between having a period, and not having a period.  Now I am really interested! - Laura
Laura "The Yellow Dart" U. (Alicia U. on the archive)
"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." -- Christopher Reeve
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Top Banana
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The way I know it, is this: Miss is for an unmarried woman regardless of age; Ms. for a woman whose marital status is unknown; and Mrs. for a married woman. It's usually Mrs. when the woman takes her husband's name. If the woman chose to keep her maiden name, it's Ms. Lois would be Mrs. Kent, and Ms. Lane. I think Ms. Lane was used before she was married, even though it was known that she wasn't married, to be politically correct, so to speak. That is, not implying either, thus not prying into anything personal. Madame I'd use with my French teacher.  No, really, I have never used it in any other context. It sounds like some rich old lady to me. It isn't common where I live. It never made me think of prostitutes, though. I have absolutely no idea what the deal with the periods is, but I'd like to find out. Julie
Mulder: Imagine if you could come back and take out five people who had caused you to suffer. Who would they be?
Scully: I only get five?
Mulder: I remembered your birthday this year, didn't I, Scully?
(The X-Files)
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Pulitzer
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mr. is for a man, miss is for a woman who has never been married, mrs. is for a woman who is married, ms. is for a woman who either might be married or who prefers not to have her marital status constantly declared in front of her name.
mr. is, of course, short for "mister," which i believe is an old varient of "master." not sure on that one.
miss is just that, as far as i know.
mrs. is short for "missus," which in turn is short for "mistress of." horribly sexist, but it's from sexist times. most people these days (as far as i know) just take it to mean "wife of" and don't bother with the original context. in any case, ms. lane, mrs. kent, mrs. lois kent, and mrs. clark kent are all proper forms of address.
ms. (prounounced "miz") is, as far as i know, basically a compromise between miss and mrs. the idea is that it could be either.
madame is french. in french, it's abbreviated mme. i don't think i've ever seen mde. or mdm. actually used, and i'm not sure what it would be used for. it can be used as a polite term when addressing a customer, but, as laura mentioned, it can also refer to the woman in charge of a house of prostitution.
ma'am is an abbreviated form of "madam" and is used mainly as the female form of "sir" (although the military now uses "sir" as the proper form of address for any superior officer). ma'am does, however, sometimes carry the implication that the woman being addressed is an older woman. though it is acceptable to use it when addressing any adult female, younger women are sometimes at least slightly offended by its usage. actually, i remember one stand-up comic talking about exactly that issue. she was in her mid 30's, and had been called "ma'am" by a customer service rep. wish i could remember her name, but her comment on the experience was, "you shouldn't be called 'ma'am' until you're old enough for your first mammogram!"
sir can be used to address a male whose name you don't know or who is in a position of authority such as a superior officer. some strict fathers have their children call them "sir." it can also be used as a polite term when addressing a customer.
to the best of my knowledge, the difference between mr. and mr is that mr. is correct. it is an abbreviation of "mister" and the period indicates that. leaving it out would be a technical error.
so, did that help? as one of my profs used to ask, "everything clear as mud?"
Paul
When in doubt, think about penguins. It probably won't help, but at least it'll be fun.
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Top Banana
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Basically, what everyone else has said.
Madame by itself, as is "she is a madame" would mean a woman who runs a house of prostitution. Madame before a woman's name is, like Julie says, something I associate with rich, stuffy, old ladies. Madame is also used before a title, as in Madame President.
Never heard of using Mr. or Mrs. without the period.
Since you ask what is grammatically correct, as opposed to common usage, it is my understanding that Mrs. Lois Kent is, technically, incorrect. As Paul points out, "Mrs." means "wife of". She is not the wife of Lois Kent; she is the wife of Clark Kent, and as such, would be Mrs. Clark Kent. Someone else correct me if I'm wrong on this.
I've managed to avoid the whole issue in my own life by being known as Ms. since my teens, and by keeping my own last name when I married.
- Vicki
"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution" - Daniel Webster
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although the military now uses "sir" as the proper form of address for any superior officer Actually, being a cadet, I know we are required to address the female officers as ma'am. Sorry, I completely forgot about that. I can't imagine a female officer being called "sir"! Julie
Mulder: Imagine if you could come back and take out five people who had caused you to suffer. Who would they be?
Scully: I only get five?
Mulder: I remembered your birthday this year, didn't I, Scully?
(The X-Files)
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Top Banana
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I really think Lois was absolutely Ms. Lane. From "It's a Small World After All" (the title I couldn't remember last night, after Perry gives Lois the name plate with "Lois Kent", they have this conversation: LOIS (CONT'D)
Uh, listen... Clark...
CLARK
(preoccupied)
Yeah?
LOIS
We haven't really talked about
this... but... Just how dead set
are you on me changing my last name
to Kent?
CLARK
Well, I...
LOIS
(rattling on)
Because, you know, it is my
professional name... And marrying
you is a _huge_ part of my life,
don't get me wrong, but so is
(indicates room)
... this. And I won't feel one bit
less married to you holding onto a
name that's taken me years to
establish. Not that tradition
isn't on your side, but why do
_women_ do all the changing?
Change our name when we get
married, change our body when we
have a baby...
CLARK
Lois ... ?
LOIS
(firmly)
Yes, Clark.
CLARK
(nods at her cup)
Next time, de-caf.
LOIS
(flustered)
I just feel _attached_...
professionally and personally to
Lois Lane.
CLARK
Me, too.
LOIS
You, too what?
CLARK
_I'm_ very attached to Lois Lane.
I fell in love with her, I admire
her, I depend on her. I'm not
asking for any other changes, am I?
LOIS
No...
CLARK
I'm marrying who you are. Not who
you'll become. - Laura (if you can't tell, I feel very strongly about the Ms. thing )
Laura "The Yellow Dart" U. (Alicia U. on the archive)
"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." -- Christopher Reeve
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Merriwether
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Merriwether
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I agree with everyone else on the Miss/Ms/Mrs. A lot of business people use Ms. now because Mrs. indicates and older woman who is dependant on her husband (or that's how I see it... doesn't stop me from using it, though). Ms. is a stronger, independant woman, or something like that.
Madam is never used in the US, at least not as an everyday greeting. It's used more in the business/political world as a formal salutation (Madam Chairwoman), but it's more of a french salutation.
And Americans use full stops: Mr., Mrs., Ms. . Brits do not: Mr, Mrs, Ms . That's because Brits are weird. :duck:
"You need me. You wouldn't be much of a hero without a villain. And you do love being the hero, don't you. The cheering children, the swooning women, you love it so much, it's made you my most reliable accomplice." -- Lex Luthor to Superman, Question Authority, Justice League Unlimited
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Pulitzer
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Actually, just to correct a couple of people: Lois, once married, could also call herself Ms Kent if she adopted Clark's surname. Ms is quite simply the female form of Mr, as opposed to distinguishing between Miss/Mrs. So a woman can use Ms independently of whether or not she changes her name on marriage. As for pronounciation, on this side of the Atlantic it tends to be pronounced Muz rather than Mizz. Personally, I switched to using Ms in my early 20s because I got completely fed up with being asked all the time 'Is that Miss or Mrs?'  I decided that my marital status was nobody else's business but my own! Though I now have the title Dr which makes life much easier in that respect - when asked that irritating question, I simply reply 'Dr'. It's amazing how some people's attitude changes once they hear that - it makes me wonder just how patronisingly other people are treated by these large bureaucracies and their call-centres.  Karen's got it right on the full stops; we never use a full stop after titles in the UK now. Whether it's Mr, Ms, Mrs, Dr, Prof, or the Rev Mr Jones or whatever, we don't add that extra little dot. It's just a waste of perfectly good space. Oh, and as regards etiquette, Vicki is quite right: according to eighteenth-century rules of address Lois, once married, would become Mrs Clark Kent. She would only be Mrs Lois Kent if she were divorced and Clark had married again. It can actually be quite difficult for social historians to trace the female line of families, because once they married women lost all official trace not only of their original family names but of their own first names. If she married more than once, a woman could begin life as, say, Miss Clara Morton, continue it as Mrs Peter Jones and end it as Mrs Edward Fuller. Imagine trying to work out whether these three women are all actually the same person? (This 'rule' of etiquette explains, if anyone had ever noticed and wondered, why we have a Prince Michael of Kent and a Princess Michael of Kent in the UK - they're husband and wife, and her own name is not Michael! But the rules of etiquette deem that to be her correct name). Wendy
Just a fly-by! *waves*
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Pulitzer
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Since you ask what is grammatically correct, as opposed to common usage, it is my understanding that Mrs. Lois Kent is, technically, incorrect. As Paul points out, "Mrs." means "wife of". She is not the wife of Lois Kent; she is the wife of Clark Kent, and as such, would be Mrs. Clark Kent. Someone else correct me if I'm wrong on this. I think this is right, or it seems to be to me I struggle with this issue <g> I have *no* problem being Mrs. Kelley Jernigan or Mrs. Jernigan in most contexts, but if I'm filling out a form where they want my first name, I usually use Ms. Pamela Jernigan, because "Mrs. Pam" just sounds really bizarre <g> Another usage that seems to be regional is calling someone "Miss <firstname>" -- my daughter's preschool teacher was Miss Polly; my son's cab driver is Miss Joyce (not really a cab -- special needs school transport). It doesn't seem to correlate to marital status, either -- Miss Joyce is married with grandchildren <g> If there are stricter rules about it, I haven't figured them out. PJ
"You told me you weren't like other men," she said, shaking her head at him when the storm of laughter had passed.
He grinned at her - a goofy, Clark Kent kind of a grin. "I have a gift for understatement."
"You can say that again," she told him.
"I have a...."
"Oh, shut up."
--Stardust, Caroline K
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Oh, and one other thing - I have professional women friends who are Ms OwnName in their working life and Mrs Husband'sName in their personal life - but that's usually women with children, and they'll do that so as not to confuse the kids, or more likely the schools. So really the rules these days are not that strictly adhered to. Wendy
Just a fly-by! *waves*
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Pulitzer
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quote:
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although the military now uses "sir" as the proper form of address for any superior officer
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Actually, being a cadet, I know we are requited to address the female officers as ma'am. Sorry, I completely forgot about that. I can't imagine a female officer being called "sir"!
Julie sorry, julie. should have been more specific. i meant the US military. rules obviously differ from country to country. in any case, i'm sure it does take some getting used to. seemed very strange to me when i first heard about it. makes sense to me now, but i'd probably still feel strange actually using it. it doesn't sound too far out of place when i hear it used on TV or something, though. Paul
When in doubt, think about penguins. It probably won't help, but at least it'll be fun.
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Pulitzer
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Everybody's got the drift, but there's a few refinements. In the US, the period (a.k.a "full stop) does follow the Ms., Mr. and Dr. There is none after Miss, which refers to a never married woman of any age (i.e. a "spinster"). There is one addition to this: Since you ask what is grammatically correct, as opposed to common usage, it is my understanding that Mrs. Lois Kent is, technically, incorrect. As Paul points out, "Mrs." means "wife of". She is not the wife of Lois Kent; she is the wife of Clark Kent, and as such, would be Mrs. Clark Kent. Someone else correct me if I'm wrong on this. A widow would be Mrs. Lois Kent. She drops her husband's first name if he is deceased. For many years there was a rash of hyphenating names in the U.S. such that the child would be called Paul <mother's last name>-<father's last name> or sometimes in the other order. This led to some very long names, such as Paul Huffington-Herrington. Then the next generation has to figure out what to do. Mark Huffington-Rajaratman or some such. I figure that whether to adopt your husband's last name professionally depends on whether you've built a professional reputation with your birthname. For Lois, Mrs. Lois Lane-Kent would make sense. So would just using her maiden name.  Ms. Artemis P.S. Miss Polly or Ms. Rachel usually indicates someone in a service or training function, like a pre-school teacher.
History is easy once you've lived it. - Duncan MacLeod
Writing history is easy once you've lived it. - Artemis
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For Lois, Mrs. Lois Lane-Kent would make sense. So would just using her maiden name. This argument seems futile because it is established cannon that Lois used Ms. Lane rather than Mrs. Lane-Kent or Mrs. Kent. She had created a name as Lois Lane. Why would she change her name? The thought just doesn't make any sense to me! Miss Polly or Ms. Rachel usually indicates someone in a service or training function, like a pre-school teacher. Or if the adult has a hard name to pronounce. I have a very strong polish name, and even though I am from a city that is predominantly Polish, when I was a kid, a lot of my friends couldn't call my parents Mr. and Mrs. full last name because they couldn't pronounce my last name. They either called my parents Mr. Dave and Ms. Mary or Mr. and Mrs. U. Actually, we called my dad Bubba, but that wasn't my point. I was always taught to call my friends' parents Mr. and Mrs. (eg Dukowski) rather than Mr. Terry and Ms. Charlene, but growing up, children calling my parents Mr. Dave and Ms. Mary was very common. - Laura
Laura "The Yellow Dart" U. (Alicia U. on the archive)
"A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles." -- Christopher Reeve
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Merriwether
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Mr and Mr. thing has me interested! This is the way I've always heard: Mr. - a guy Master - for a young boy Ms. - married or single. Depends on the women's preference, regardless of occupation as well. If you don't know you use this. You never know who you may offend. Ms. is used more often in business circles. Mrs. - Married lady. Miss. - single. Other pple use it when addressing a young lady and do not know her name. (side note - To me.... when it is an older lady and you don't know her name you say Ma'am.) When ever I hear Madam I think of a butler saying it with a snobby sounding English accent or a lady heading a brothel! I am married. I have my old last name, plus my husband's name. I started to use Ms., but now I use Mrs. to me Ms. always seemed mean. Maybe I had a mean teacher with Ms. and that has stuck with me and I don't remember that. The zzzzzzz sound always sounded harsh to me. I always hoped I wouldn't have to use the above. I've always wanted to be Dr. Though, I think that will never happen  . Also, I've had enough teasing ----> Dr. Ruth.
I've converted to lurk-ism... hopefully only temporary.
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Hack from Nowheresville
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OP
Hack from Nowheresville
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Thanks for all your replies. All least I've got everything straightened out. metwin1
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Merriwether
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Years ago, when I was in the bar course, a male instructor asked the women in the course to say whether we preferred to be called Miss and Mrs. or if we preferred to be called Ms.
Every single woman wanted to be called Ms. in her professional capacity.
Men don't announce their marital status everytime they give their names when conducting business so why should we?
She was in such a good mood she let all the pedestrians in the crosswalk get to safety before taking off again.
- CC Aiken, The Late Great Lois Lane
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Merriwether
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Oh, and as regards etiquette, Vicki is quite right: according to eighteenth-century rules of address Lois, once married, would become Mrs Clark Kent. She would only be Mrs Lois Kent if she were divorced and Clark had married again. A divorcée is Mrs. FirstName Ex'sLastName regardless of whether said ex has remarried or not -- unless she chooses to return to her maiden name, is which case she is Ms. FirstName MaidenName.
Do you know the most surprising thing about divorce? It doesn't actually kill you, like a bullet to the heart or a head-on car wreck. It should. When someone you've promised to cherish till death do you part says, "I never loved you," it should kill you instantly.
- Under the Tuscan Sun
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Pulitzer
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Hi Laura: This argument seems futile because it is established cannon that Lois used Ms. Lane rather than Mrs. Lane-Kent or Mrs. Kent. She had created a name as Lois Lane. Why would she change her name? I was speaking of form in general and not specifically to the show, just using Lois as an example. There are several options. Yes, I forgot, Master is a young boy (pre-teen). I've been married my whole professional life and wore a wedding ring to work (some don't). And I've always used "Ms." Ms. Artemis
History is easy once you've lived it. - Duncan MacLeod
Writing history is easy once you've lived it. - Artemis
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