When do boys become Mr rather then Master?

[BrightBlueHue]

Helping DS (16) to complete his college application.

Title HAS to be filled in.

Question is, when do boys become a Mr? 16 or 18? There seems to be a mixed response online.

Posting here for traffic!

Just get him to write Mr. It's not exactly going to matter

I thought Master was for small boys. I would definitely use Mr for a 16 year old, and probably once at secondary school, or at least teenage.

@sofamarathon It’s an online application form, no writing required.

The point still stands I’m sure.

When they get married, obviously. They can be arrested if they use "Mr" when not entitled to it.

Does the application form really have "Master" as an option? If not then maybe you are worrying too much and could just tick Mr?

@LordEmsworth it does have Master as an option, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking the question.

I think sometime around the 20th century?

Well it's his name. Pointless thread

@sofamarathon so pointless that you’ve commented at least three times. Scroll through and move on if it’s so pointless. 😂

Just thought I’d ask the question. I won’t lose sleep over it.

I generally stop putting Master on eg birthday cards when boys turn 13. I wouldn’t use Master for a 16 year old.

I'd definitely put Mr for a 16yo. I put Mr for my 13yo the other day.

Defo mr. I think sofamarathon needs to go back to bed

You ALWAYS use Mister if your surname is Bates.

I worked in College applications and laughed my socks off at the software developer who had put master as an option for our online applications! In all the applications I received in written form they were Mr for the boys/ men.

No one uses master at all anymore.

My DH who is 32 was given the title master by his bank aged about 11, he only changed it last year 🤣

I would personally go with Mr.

Passport forms only allow Mr as Master isn’t on the form. I had a heated discussion with the post office worker about giving my baby daughter Ms as a title though -she told me I hadn’t filled the form in correctly and tried to refuse to say it was filled in correctly (back in the days when forms were paper and you could lay a little more to get the post office to check your form before you sent it off!) - she got heated not me!

Not totally relevant here I know but I’m thoroughly fed up of the historical continuation of marital change in title for women and not men and hate the historical reasons why it happened. I go by Ms myself now even though I’m happily married. Women changing their surnames is also a bug bear for me although I’m not sure what the long term solution is for that as double barrelling your name only works for so many generations!

Definitely Mr.

I was always taught that Master ends at the point where you're legally entitled to be independent from your parents under normal circumstances - which, at the moment, is 16. To my knowledge, at least.

I've never addressed any boys as Master at all. Occasionally Mr. but hardly ever that either. Master sounds very Victorian and straight out of Charles Dickens. Is it really used anymore?

I guess Mr. is really just an abbreviation of Master just as Mrs. is an abbreviation of Mistress. Not necessary most of the time though.

When they get married and change their names. Oh, wait........

🤣🤣🤣

I remember Master Bates from the children's TV series "Captain Pugwash" all those years ago. 🤣 That must date me! I didn't get the joke there until I was a teenager/young adult. 😁

I'd have thought it was at the turn of the 20th century 😂

About 10?

That's the answer! Nobody uses it anymore. I'm fairly sure it would be Mr for all males, just as it is Miss/Ms for girls which often follows into adulthood.
I imagine in the olden days master would end at about 12 though.