to address a woman in a formal letter as "Ms"?

[twattock]

Here's the problem; as a solicitor the formal way to address correspondence is "Dear sirs/your faithfully" or "Dear (insert as appropriate)/yours sincerely". But I often have to write to a woman without knowing what title she has given herself-so do I use Ms? I dont want to assume anything obviously, so I can't use Miss or Mrs, so what would people prefer?

annielobeseder "It drives me crazy that my otherwise perfectly equal-rights modern man DH is all hurt and offended that I'm "rejecting" his name (um, no, I'm keeping it, I'm just putting my own name in front of it) but he looked at me as if I'd grown two heads when I asked if he'd take on my name in addition to his."

Problem is that it's not your own name though, is it? It's your Dad's. How do you feel about that? I guess that the only difference is that both boys and girls have their father's name imposed upon them at birth so there's no discrimination there, and perhaps it's reasonable for a child to be "owned" by someone since he/she is genuinely incapable of being independent.

On the other part of the debate, "Dear Parters" is an excellent suggestion. Hazle, is "Dear Colleagues" a US thing? I disagree a bit with Amanda there, I think it is OK. Though the reference to "My learned friend" reminds me of something - I have a vague memory that barristers call each other "my learned friend" but solicitors appearing before a judge just say "my friend"! I really really hope that when you have a barrister on one side and a solicitor on the other that the "learned" only goes one way. Haven't been to Court in England in a long time, is that still the case anyone?

Beveridge, I went to school in Scotland. Teachers at primary were usually addressed as Miss/Mrs surname and there were no male teachers. At high school though, it was a mixture of "Surr!" and "Muss!" and Mr/Mrs Surname, depending on how polite the pupil was feeling - I would say that Sir/Miss was less polite. Are you sure that your pupils actually call you "Ms" when addressing you orally- could you really tell the difference when spoken?

Sorry, that should have said "I really really hope that when you have a barrister on one side and a solicitor on the other that the "learned" DOESN'T only goes one way."

I had never really thought about Sir and Miss not being equivalent, that is an excellent point. I have always liked Ma'am when heard in the police context, memories of Juliet Bravo.

Where I live, it's very common for people to have Filipina helpers at home. The preferred form of address by the helpers (most employers would just want to be called by their first names) is "Ma'am firstname", which is a really odd combination of respectful and familiar.

Problem is that it's not your own name though, is it? It's your Dad's

Oh, this old chestnut. Tell me, Jessie, why do you think that Annie's name still belongs to her Dad, despite it having been hers for her entire life, and yet her DH's name is presumably his own? And not his Dad's, although that was from whom he inherited it? Because if you're going to take the Dad approach, you have to say that you're choosing between your Dad's name and your husband's Dad's name, surely?

I am pretty sure "Dear Colleagues" is not common usage in the US. The usual practice is to address a formal letter to the lead lawyer on the other side or to the managing partner and to sign one?s own name on behalf of the firm.

I also like "Dear Partners."

From reading novels set in Scotland and England, it also occurred to me that there was an obvious inequality in "Sir and ?Miss" in the school context and I wonder how and why the usage developed.

I am from the American South, and sir and ma?am are still in common use in addressing a teacher or an elder or someone whose attention you are trying to get but don?t know their name.

Another example of combining the respectful with the familiar is the Southern custom of children being taught to call adults, such as their parents' friends, Mr. Firstname and Miss Firstname (always Miss in this context whether married or not). A mark of being more grown-up is getting permission to drop the Mr./Miss.

I dislike Ms. And I really dislike it when it is applied to me. I am a Miss. I have never been married, certainly not to my dad (I still have his surname!), and am therefore not a Mrs.

SPB - I would have been the awkward one moaning that I wasn't married to my Dad!

Master is still used - at least, all my DS's medical appointment letters are addresses to : The parent or guardian of Master DS2.

Tortoise. No need to be rude. I did actually muse further on the question myself and identify why taking a father's name is not as anti-feminist as taking a husband's one. The point is that no surname is ever really one's own.

Some schools do use sir and ma'am rather than miss and i do prefer that

When I started teaching I got called ma'am and hated it. I hate Miss too. I was Miss surname. If I wasn't married I would keep Miss and not change to Ms.

One if the minor things I don't like about ds's school is that they use Miss and Sir like names.

"I gave my homework to Miss" "Sir said I should come to extra training on Tuesday"

At my DC's school, all staff are addressed as title surname. It was that way at every school I attended too.

I know. And the "I gave it to Miss" grates every time I hear it!

when I was married I always used Ms. I was young so it was assumed I was a Miss now it is assumed I am a Mrs I always correct people

I do not belong to someone

I am a Mrs but wouldnt be offended by a Ms, although I userstand historically what it inferred.

It strikes me as a bit stupid we havent done away with it and just do Master/Mr and Miss/Ms - it would simplify things massively.

Its almost like "whooohoooo I have a successful marriage, call me Mrs"

I remember asking my Mum aged five (in the early seventies) why the head teacher was known as Ms. She told me because it was nobody's business whether a woman was married or not. I thought that was a reasonable answer given that my mother is a proud non-feminist.

Don't understand where these myths about Ms denoting divorce have come from.

Sir and Miss drive me demented. My male colleague gets a title which suggests social elevation whereas I get an infantile one.

I loathe Sir and Miss - what's so hard about remembering the relevant surname and title? There's the obvious lack of parity between the two terms, and then the way it makes references sound so generic and impersonal: 'Miss told me to give it to Sir - not you Miss, the other Miss'.

Although it does seem to mean that children, when they do have to use a surname for a female teacher, just automatically convert all their teachers to something pronounced somewhere in between Miss and Ms, like 'Missss' which trails off as they realise they don't know whether the teacher is actually Miss, Mrs or Ms!

Mind you, I was under the impression for ages that ds had a teacher called Miss Dunoon- I was very confused when I met Mr. Noon.....

Jessie - he pupils up here (north-east Scotland NEVER address their teachers as just 'Miss' even if they call themselves that, the title is always followed by the surname. I recall one of my classmates from England addressing a Mrs Geography teacher as just 'Miss' and he got pretty short shrift on the grounds that she had an individual name and title and would he please have the courtesy to use it!

I know that the Sir/Miss thing is a Central Belt occurence but it doesn't extend this far north.when pupils address female teachers quickly it sometimes does all merge into a 'Misbeveridge' (Ms is usually pronounced with a soft z up here) to the untrained ear whether Mrs, Miss or Ms but the distinction is still there as you can see when they have to write your name on something.

In fact, out of the classroom they are far more likely to refer to all female teachers as 'The Wifie Beveridge'whether married or not! (It's aDoric thing [local dialect])

thing but

Jessie - indeed, my unmarried name was my dad's. And my grand-dad's etc etc and so on back through time. But I can't change how they inherited their name, only what I call myself. It's the name I was born with and grew up with. It's mine.

If it weren't such a bugger to spell/pronounce (one of the reasons I was so happy to get rid of it when I married) I'd get the DD's names changed too. But for all its awkwardness, I miss it and want it back!

Absolutely, Annie.

Although you have added to the bizarrely large number of women who appear to have last names that are awkward to say, cumbersome and difficult to spell and which only women have!

Nah, my brothers and my dad have one too... And my male cousins, not one of whom over the last umpty-something years has managed to give any of their children a name that I think works at all well with my surname.

I wish wish wish that I'd been given my mother's maiden name, by itself or double-barrelled. Then the DCs would have that alone or double-barrelled with DH's. In fact almost any other name from anywhere on my family tree (except for my paternal grandmother's maiden name, which would count as child cruelty if anyone double-barrelled it with DH's) would do. My mother says that she didn't realise when she married that keeping her own name, let alone passing it on to her children, was even an option -- and given that this was back when a married woman routinely needed to get her husband's permission to do almost anything I'm not surprised she thought that way.

No, Tolliver, you've got it wrong! Men all have lovely euphonious last names that women can't wait to change their horrid ones for.

I like my awkward, cumberson, hard to spell name

I used to like the fact that, 'cos of the way I shorten my first name and I refused to put titles on to my letters/memos/telex (before the days of email ) in my first (and subsequent) jobs, people used to expect a German male and would get me!

My boss had an argument with a colleague on my behalf. he was sorting out business cards and wanted to make me put a title on "'cos otherwise people wouldn't know what sex I was" . My boss pointed out that as business cards tend to get handed out in person and I was a slim, attractive graduate recruit , if they hadn't worked out what sex I was by then, they had bigger problems!