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English language (monolingual) [Non-PRO] General / Conversation / Greetings / Letters / Registration Form (for schools)
English term or phrase:Ms vs. Mrs
Hello,
Can you help with this, please?
If a woman got married and never changed her surname (and still uses her maiden surname), would she sign as Ms X or MRS X (if though she does not use her husband surname)?
Explanation: I would say it really depends on the woman's personal preference.
Generally speaking, one would sign oneself 'Mrs' to indicate the fact that one is married; this does not rpeclude having kept ones maiden name; it would be rather old-fashioned to think of it as meaning 'the wife of Mr X' (in which case the unhanged name might have appeared illogical)
However, the fact that she has chosen to kept her maiden name might indicate she is eager to assert her independence, in which case, she might herself prefer to use 'Ms' — on the basis that it is no-ones business but her own whether she is married or not.
Personally, in a modern business environment, I feel that 'Ms' is generally most appropriate.
You might also wish to consider the fact that in EN, people don't usually tend to us either Mr or Ms when signing off a letter; normally, christian name or initials + surname are quite enough; it might even be considered a point for sexual equality, since after all, what difference should it make if the writer is male or female?
Signing oneself 'Mrs X' is likely perhaps these days to give the letter a 'cosy' feel, which might or might not be appropriate in your register. For example, if someone were replying to an enquiry about a knitting pattern, it might be friendly to sign off as 'Mrs Purl'; such familiarity might however be quite out of place if she was the director of a steelworks writing to sack an employee, in which case S. S. Steel might be more suitable!
The only exception to this might perhaps be if the writer has a christian name that is not obviously a woman's or man's name; in this case, it might be kind to the reader to let them know, simply to avoid them any embarrassment should they have to ring and ask for the person.
The above is another argument against "Mrs" as traditionally used. Mrs John Smith was the "correct" form for Mr John Smith's wife. Mrs Mary Smith would have been understood to have been Mr Smith's widow. This was/is, of course, not restricted to humble "Mrs"s as evidenced by that strange person Princess Michael of Kent.
Tony is right that this practice was not universal: married women were by no means automatically unemployable before the Second World War. Nevertheless, "marriage bars" were widespread from around 1900 to the 1930s, both in the United States and Britain, particularly in teaching and clerical work. They involved both not employing married women and requiring women to leave when they married. Employment of married women increased greatly from the 1950s. There is a very interesting section on this (in relation to the US) in Claudia Goldin's book Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990). She tells us, for example, that "before 1940, more than 80% of all married women had exited the labor force at marriage".
Another interesting study on this, available online, is Dora L. Costa, "From Mill Town to Board Room: The Rise of Women’s Paid Labor", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14, no 4 (Fall 2000): 101–122: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/costa/jeppaper.pdf
BDF wrote: "Women also used to be dismissed from employment as teachers or secretaries ... when they became "Mrs" until (I think) the 1930s."
I don't think that was by any means universal; my Mother dated from that period, and never had any trouble getting a variety of administrative posts despite being Mrs Loughran.
If a woman wants to highlight her preferred title, she may choose to put it in brackets after her name. e.g. Jane Smith (Miss/Mrs/Ms/Prof./Dr./Lady etc.)
As indicated in "My own practice" entry, Mme is the acceptable form in France and the one I use, when I don't simply use first name and surname. The former practice in France was that unmarried women of any age used Mlle, but once a woman was married she used Mme even if she subsequently became divorced or widowed and reverted to her maiden name. Recently, feminists have rejected this and it is generally agreed that all adult women may use Mme irrespective of marital status. This may vary between different Prefectures.
I remember my father referring to his elderly aunt an "old girl" because she had never married. Apparently the fact she had been living with a man for many years was inadequate for her to be considered a "woman". That was the sort of attitude behind the use of "Miss" and "Mrs". On the other hand, until the 1960s, unmarried women had greater rights over property in England and Wales than married women (e.g. unlike married women, they could take out a mortgage in their own name). Women also used to be dismissed from employment as teachers or secretaries (but not from factory work) when they became "Mrs" until (I think) the 1930s.
... having retained my maiden name, is to challenge anyone calling me "Mrs" by asking whether they are implying that I incestuously married my father. A major reason for the rejection of "Mrs" by feminists is that it carries an offensive assumption that a woman's way of acquiring social status is through marriage. However, it seems that the French are belatedly tackling this problem by using "Mme" generally and dropping "Mlle" (except perhaps for children) and somehow "Mme" is more acceptable than "Mrs".
"Mrs" (unlike Mme) has a history of being used in an anonymising, dismissive way: going home to the Mrs is a bit like referring to "her indoors" and Hey Mrs! somehow seems offensive, while Hey Miss! can seem either neutral or even diffident.
David Moore (X)
The EC English Sytle Guide
19:28 Oct 1, 2012
makes it quite clear where full stops appear - or don't, particularly in titles. Mr and Mrs are certainly what I learned at school all those decades ago, and they still hold good, to support Charles Davis.
the title Frau is generally used nowadays (rather than Fräulein), making it impossible to tell what status the "lady" has and therefore in translations, the use of Ms is advisable, unless there are other indications. I personally would not use Ms (for myself)...
Having worked in a local high school quite recently, I can confidently state that this is very much a matter of personal preference. I, personally, went the old school route (Mrs), but many of my colleagues preferred Ms (note the absence of the period). One woman (in her 50s, but not at all old fashioned in her thinking or manner) retained her maiden name and went with "Miss". There is no hard or fast rule. The good news is that students and colleagues alike respected individual preferences that way.
it is probably a case of "whatever turns you on," but I have been told that in Canada, too, officially the use of Mrs. is "going out of practice" as are full stops are after all forms of address.
Colin and Tony have both pointed out, quite rightly, that people do not normally include a title like Mrs, Ms (or indeed Mr) in their handwritten signature. However, in most cases the name will be printed under the signature (very necessary, since many peoples' signatures are of uncertain legibility), and there the title might well be included, and probably would be in the case you're dealing with.
I could imagine that someone who has retained her own surname might use Mrs in the situation you're describing, registering at an independent school, where "Ms" might be taken as a provocatively feminist gesture. I'm not saying she would be right to do so, just that she might choose to.
I would say the full stop is more commonly omitted nowadays in British English, though of course it is not universal practice. A commonly-applied rule with abbreviations generally is that when the abbreviation includes the last letter of the word, as it does in these cases, there is no full stop afterwards. I am not saying it is wrong to put a full stop!
Though I omitted to put a full stop (or period, or point) after Ms in my answer, I would normally do so. If dropping the points in these abbreviations is a trend in modern British English, it has escaped my attention.
The usage of Ms was introduced some 40 yrs ago as described by Jack and Nancy.
However if a woman wants it to be known that she is married, she can use Mrs, even if she uses a different surname then that used by her husband. From a linguistic/translation standpoin Ms. Is probably the best choice if you don't know the use preferred by the person in question. The use of Mrs is acceptable but old fashioned.
You already have two answers, and don't need another, but I'd just like to add a couple of comments to what my colleagues have said:
1. If a woman who has retained her maiden surname after marriage wishes to sign as "Mrs", there's no law to stop her. It's just that she would probably not choose to do so. The decision to retain her surname tends to imply that she wishes to retain her identity, as it were, and not label herself as a married woman (implicitly subsumed, in some sense, by her husband's identity), and people often use "Ms" for the same reason. So the use of "Mrs" in this case would be surprising, and would seem contradictory. However, people nowadays do not attach so much importance to rules of etiquette, and do whatever they choose.
2. It is important to note that Mrs and Ms (as well as Mr) are written with a point (Mrs. Ms. Mr.) in American English and usually without a point (Mrs Ms Mr) in British English.
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Answers
4 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +5
ms vs. mrs
Ms.
Explanation: Ms. was adopted to remove the personal information conveyed by Miss vs. Mrs., as an equivalent of Mr., which does not reveal any personal information about a man's civil status. The "Ms." title emerged in the 70s, at the height of the women's movement in North America.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 5 mins (2012-10-01 13:15:09 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Mrs. or Ms.? 10 Feb 2008 ... Ms. tends to be silent on marital status, even if you know the actual status. Mrs. tends to be used when you want to acknowledge the "married" marital status. www.englishforums.com/English/MrsOrMs/hkrr/post.htm - 38k - Similar pages
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 5 mins (2012-10-01 13:15:16 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Mrs. or Ms.? 10 Feb 2008 ... Ms. tends to be silent on marital status, even if you know the actual status. Mrs. tends to be used when you want to acknowledge the "married" marital status. www.englishforums.com/English/MrsOrMs/hkrr/post.htm - 38k - Similar pages
NancyLynn Canada Local time: 20:27 Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 48