Miss Mrs Ms Mr don't quite work any more

[JellySlice]

Many people like having a title for formal use. But they can be tricky to get right, and often don’t really represent us well.

How could we adapt them for the 21st century?

French style: Miss for a younger woman, Mrs for an older woman (age cut-off? Risk of offending the woman?)

What about similar for men? We
have Master and Mister, but I don’t think Master for a young man works in the 21st century.

So maybe we should just stick with Ms and Mr for everyone.

If people choose to denote their marital status, there should be an equivalent for men. I propose Mrs for both men and women, pronounced Missus and Misters.

Perhaps we also need a gender neutral title, like the earned titles Dr, Prof etc, for those who want the formality of one, without revealing their sex. Since all the standard titles begin with M, perhaps the neuter title should as well, or at least include it. (Tricky, though. Could sound like a word for mother, or an actual name.)

I hate Ms so much, and don’t really like Mrs either. I don’t really understand why we need titles anymore. Doesn’t really make much sense to me. 🤷‍♀️

Noisy?

Aargh. I typed “Moosh?” but autocorrect says no.

IT'S MA'AM

Ahem sorry. I use Ms when asked but for correspondence I go Quaker and write "dear first name surname" as that is how I also sign off. Maybe some people would prefer a title but they can hardly object to being addressed by name. Never had any complaints anyway.

I don’t really understand why we need titles anymore

This.

I'm happy with Mrs, but I do think you should be able to opt out of a title if you don't want it. Though it might be interesting in schools, would we just call teachers and TA's 'Smith' or 'Jones' I wonder.

Mr for men and Mrs for women

The use of Mlle in France is now illegal and there are just Mme and M as titles.

Both Mrs and Miss are abbreviations of Mistress and Mister and Master are contractions of Maister, derived from magister in Latin meaning master.

So, the feminine of master is mister.

Personally, I think there are more important things to be worked up about than titles.

Me for men Ms for women. Who doesn’t use Ms anyway - it’s 2020 people!

@CayrolBaaaskin

Me for men Ms for women. Who doesn’t use Ms anyway - it’s 2020 people!

Me because I dont like it

I've been a Ms in my personal life since I was 18. Have never changed, even after I got married.

Women in my profession invariably go by Ms. Miss and Mrs seem to me to be quite old fashioned terms, especially in the workplace.

I liked being a "Miss" except for the obvious implication that I've somehow "missed" something when I wasn't married.

I don't like Mrs because it's Mr's without the apostrophe and my husband doesn't own me.

I saw "Mx" as a title but think it's fucking stupid. It's for people who are Mx'd up.

So legally I went with "Ms" but only because I can't call myself "Empress of my own domain, woman of independent means, and belonging to no one".

Anyway it probably wouldn't fit on letters from HMRC.

Just Mr and Ms. But I don't think it's necessary to have titles, or at least I can't think off the top of my head when it would be.

I wish there was a campaign that whenever a politician's marital status is used on the news (eg Mrs Thatcher), the next male politician to be mentioned had to have his marital status announced too. It would soon stop, and it would be Margaret Thatcher for evermore.

Oh nooooooooo!!

I worked in a school for a very long time where the kids used our first names. I haven’t really adjusted to being called Miss Endless and would prefer to be called Del but that’s the way most schools work.

I made sure my badge said Ms and when I sign cards to the kids I put Ms but I don’t refuse to answer to Miss (well, I do if they’re being lazy lol).

For me I would just have Ms as the equivalent of Mr and if anyone wants to signal they are married the option to use Mrs.

I do still see the point of titles. If I ring a kid’s parent I do not feel at all comfortable using their first name and I dislike strangers ringing me up and calling me Del. So I think there’s a need for titles. They have a use.

I doubt I’d put it in my insta bio tho! (“Ask me about my titles!”)

Hate titles, don't see the point of them. If insisted on I have always used Ms, which invariably gets mispronounced giving me the rage.
In local schools, teachers just get called Sir or Miss, with no surnames.

Hello Jelly, I'm Sam, the new GP.
Hello Jelly, I'm Sam Brown, the new GP.
Hello Jelly, I'm Dr Sam, the new GP.

I'm fine with all of those. But it creates a totally different, top-down dynamic if the new GP introduces him or her self (particularly if it is himself):

Hello Jelly, I'm Dr Brown, the new GP.

If you're Dr Brown, then I'm Ms Slice.

We're phasing our titles in our official correspondence to clients. The database is having the "title" field removed and also the gender field - neither are necessary, so our evaluation of data held as required by GDPR is that we don't need that data.

Future letters will be sent to Jane Smith, 1 Anytown, and the letter will state "Dear Jane". Lots of banks, insurance/utility firms etc are doing the same and removing the title/salutation fields.

@newtb It's not illegal! The govt has decided not to use it any more is all, and most private corporations have also adopted the convention . Not my bank, though, the backward bastards.

I don’t like titles and I avoid them wherever possible (although mostly in correspondence I’ll reply using the name the person used for themselves, so where I have received a letter from Mr Smith or whatever that’s who I reply to).

I much prefer school teachers to use their first name with the kids but that seems to be disappearing! Which is funny when this stuff is mostly becoming less formal in most walks of life.

I have been Ms always - except a brief experiment with Miss (once I was old enough!) as a political point about being unmarried, but that didn’t really work so I reverted to Ms.

I have seen Mx written for many years now, but I’ve never yet heard it pronounced!

The point about a woman’s title potentially declaring her marital status while a mans doesnt is a fair point to raise - but given that women and men face different responses to being married/not, parents/not, matching that wouldn’t entirely level the playing field anyway.

Ms and Mr. Women’s marital status has naff all bearing on how they should be addressed.

I'm Mrs Lachy, I wasn't bothered about being Miss/Ms or Mrs/Ms, neither was I fussed about keeping or changing my last name when I got married.

I like Mrs personally. But I hate Ms. I definitely wouldn't want to do away with titles as for some reason I hate salespeople for instance calling me by my first name. It feels too familiar.

I like that in Italian they use signore/signora regardless of marital status.

Perhaps we also need a gender neutral title, like the earned titles Dr, Prof etc, for those who want the formality of one, without revealing their sex

Some companies need to know your gender though.

I got a long lecture from easyjet for using Mr by accident when filling in the drop down lists.

Apparently it is essential that they know the sex of their passengers so they can distribute weight properly

I hate titles. I hate mrs and everything it stands for especially.