Using 'Mrs'

To be honest, I would prefer to cut to the chase and find a polite title that applied equally to men and women.

If it is irrelevant, when I am opening a bank account, whether or not I am married, surely what my genitalia look like is equally irrelevant?

(I know there is Mx, but do people really address each other as that in spoken language?)

I was thinking about this yesterday that it is nice living in Germany where every adult woman is Frau X regardless of marital status.

I decided to keep Miss after I got married, Ms just seemed an unnecessary change. I wouldn't object to Mrs MaidenName, if that were the convention.

As it is most people assume I am not married, especially as wedding rings are worn on the right hand in Germany and I wear mineon the left, but that doesn't matter to me.

Latecomer to the chat and the thread ... I have an English-speaking background but live in Sweden, where we do not have titles (unless things like HRH or Professor and we still don't adress people by them, just use them as job titles really). I can recommend this system. ;) Go for it.

I tend to choose Ms when I have to choose anything (like when shopping online). Because principles. But I have to disagree with those who say it's not hard to pronounce. Mz is hard to say and I think people tend to want to insert an "invisible" letter i and make it Miz. (I idly started googling for phonetical explanations (you know, nasal sounds, fricatives, sibilants, that sort of thing) but I don't have time to study atm, sorry.) If the name after a z begins with a buzzy letter (like a d) it'll be easier to say, but if it's a non-buzzy letter, like a t, the English-speaking mouth will want to soften the z to an s instead. And then you get something very close to Miss.

Coincidentally, yesterday at work I saw a little book/pamphlet in our reception about phrases and expressions in English. I flipped through it and there was a little section on titles where they recommended Ms but specifically commented on the difficult pronunciation. Saying z is very difficult for a Swede, the sound doesn't exist in Swedish. And I can say z and say it with relish, but I still find Ms hard. It is an abbreviation that is not meant to be pronounced with just those letters but meant to be read as a longer word (we don't say mrs we say missus ;) ).

I live in German speaking place and am happy to be called Frau,so is my married neighbour and my unmarried neighbour. I hate the miss,ms,Mrs issue. My marital status is not something necessarily want to share. Ms just doesn't role offor the tongue well though does it. I vote for miss for all of us. ...

I am a Ms here because I am asked in forms etc (not originally British, like Seneca, am also mystified by the importance attached to titles in this country).

Haven't had any problems with CRB checks, but my bank manager told me that I'd need to bring proof of divorce to change my title from Miss (which I accidentally chose when opening the account as I did not quite understand the question ) to Ms . He seemed pretty convinced! I just stared and said goodbye.

I use "Miss" because I was comfortable "owning" not being married before I was comfortable "owning" being feminist, and it stuck in my head. I don't really care whether other people call me "Miss" or "Ms", but I do correct them if they call me "Mrs". Quite sharply, usually, because if I'm not on first name terms with someone it's generally because they're being a twat so I'm being pissy with them. For that reason, I'd love to have a title- it'd be nice to be able to say "actually, it's Lady" to jumped up little oiks who need squashing.

I wonder that too Errol, I think that I have rather come to expect the questions and so now my demeanor sort of invites comment. I think that I should just own it from now on.

re the pronounciation of Ms, the only way to distinguish it from Miss is the s/z sound, it's quite a subtle difference, especially to a non native speaker. Anyone with poor hearing or in a noisy environment will find it hard too.

I wonder if the different responses are down to the people you're acquainted with or a particular demeanor?

I rather feel I let the side down by never being a Ms. - I'm sure there are loads of my generation (I'm 56) but everyone I knew went with Mrs or Dr professionally.

"When I use "Ms", too many people ask me "when did you stop being married?"

I have been Ms for more than 40 years. Nobody has ever asked me that.

When I use "Miss", too many people ask me "when will you get married?"
When I use "Mrs", too many people ask me "when did you get married?"
When I use "Ms", too many people ask me "when did you stop being married?"

Madame and Monsieur can both be used in "bonjour M.." without a surname, which is handy.

Does French have a word for "master"?

Well the British definition of "madame" is a married Frenchwoman, originally a title of respect for a woman of rank, now given to any married woman.
But that's from an English dictionary, I'm not sure what the proper roots are.

Did Madame and Frau ever primarily mean married woman in those countries, though?

Also, their usage is different And has a connotation not just a title. Meine Liebe Frau is my dear wife, Hausfrau is housewife etc. We don't say "house-Missus"

Oui, Madame as a response would be more equivalent to "yes, ma'am" than "yes, Mrs".

This is what the French and Germans did (Fraulein died out decades ago, and Mademoiselle seems to be almost obsolete as well), with everyone just going for Mme/Frau.

I feel this would have been the better option, too.
Let's face it, the majority of married women are fine with Mrs, so by using Ms we are expecting millions of people to change, and people don't like change.
With Mrs, the married people could keep their status quo, no expectations of them to change, we'd just drop the association of Mrs with marriage (which as others have pointed out hasn't always been the case anyway).
It's worked in France and Germany, and would have worked here too.

Mux, I think!

Mx is fine written (and an excellent solution if you have to write to someone for whom you only have initials and surname) but I really don't know how it would be pronounced. Or would you just say mister or mizz depending on your perception of which gender the person is? (for once, 'gender' is probably more appropriate than sex in this context)

However, being pragmatic, Mrs is much more widely used, and so it seems to me that aiming to enlarge its meaning to encompass all women would be a simpler - and probably more effective - campaign.

But ti implies that by a certain age a woman should be married and if she is not then we will give her the title and pretend.

When my mum gave birth to me all women were referred to as 'Mrs' in the maternity hospital because it was shameful to be pregnant and a Miss.

Personally Mx is the way to go.

Until the age of 18 my two brothers were always called "Master" on letters from the bank, my sister and I were "Miss". We are all in our twenties so it wasn't that long ago. I tried to change my title from Miss to Ms with that same bank a few years ago and was told it was only for divorced women. After going home and checking online this wasn't the case I planned to go back in and change it but ended up starting a new bank account with a different bank as Ms.

I do prefer Ms to Mrs and Miss, but I don't think I know how to pronounce it correctly as everytime I say it to someone they say "miss?". I pronounce it as "Miz" which is how I thought it should be, maybe I should be saying "Muz"?

I think with Ms being a default for so many teachers, more young people will grow up expecting it to be the norm.

Given the weak acceptance of Ms. even today in the UK, I can find myself wishing that we had simply done what most other European countries seem to have done--ie, simply adopted the "previous married women's title" (= Mrs) for everyone, and let "Miss" fade away bit by bit.

This is what the French and Germans did (Fraulein died out decades ago, and Mademoiselle seems to be almost obsolete as well), with everyone just going for Mme/Frau.

There even would have been a historical precedent for this, since Mrs was used for unmarried women as well until around 1800, I think.

Oh well, too late now, I guess. I use Ms.

We also called the French Teacher Madame Lastname and the German teacher Frau Lastname, so being told "this is Ms X", we didn't say "what's that we don't know that word" we just went along with it.

I had a teacher at secondary school who was Ms 20 years ago. It was not difficult.

Many teachers at Dc school are Ms and there is no fuss about calling them that, the kids see it as a normal thing.

I say Mzz. (Like bzzzz but short). Mostly in answer to the question "Miss or Missus?"

Stops Ms being heard as Miss!