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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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ms seems fine for writing, and if we're all happy - i certainly am - to give up titles when being addressed in person, then it may work out fine. i sometimes get addressed as mr. in shops and it feels really strange.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>>i sometimes get addressed as mr. in shops and it feels really strange.<<
Good heavens, william, aren't you one??
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Joined: Jul 2000
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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technically, yes!
i guess my face is older than my heart. inside i'm still a child!
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addict
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>>The whole caper could be dispensed with by simply considering it polite to address people by their given names.<<
Yes, I do this a lot, and I prefer to be called Bridget rather than anything else. (And I bet I'm older than you, William, but that Mr / Mrs / Ms / Miss in shops is still disturbing to me too.)
If people ask I say I'm Ms - I'm not a Mrs as I've never been married, but after years in a live-in relationship, Miss seems equally inappropriate.
I'm actually Bridget Holland and my partner is Steve Doughty. I get called Mrs Holland, Mrs Doughty, Ms Holland, Miss Holland and so on. I answer to anything as long as it's clear that it's me who is meant and as long as it's not too rude.
I don't care what surname is used - as I look at it I can use my father's or my partner's. I don't feel either is particularly mine.
The one form of address I really objected to was a boss of mine (Japanese) who used to call me 'O-ne-chan'. This is literally 'Sister' and is used as a term of address for an unknown young female. (Much as I imagine 'Miss' on its own was used in earlier times. Or as in 'O-ne-chan, would you make some coffee.' But putting feminism aside...)
...what drove me mad about this was that the guy knew my name and couldn't be bothered to use it. There were four young women in the office who could have been meant by 'O-ne-chan' and he just saw us as interchangeable. My identity was irrelevant, let alone my marital status!
I stopped answering until he started addressing me by name.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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>When I was learning French at school, I was taught that "tu" was the familiar form of address - to a friend, peer, or sometimes to one who was perceived as "inferior" (a servant, a student, etc.)
Other languages have similar constructions. In Russian, if I remember correctly from almost 40 years ago, the informal and formal can be found in endings on verbs themselves. Thus, if you were greeting someone you knew well you would say something that sounded similar to strawstvee, but strawstveetye if it was a casual acquaintance, superior, etc.
Of course it may be that this word wasn't a verb, but I seem to remember it translated to "how are you" or some such.
TEd
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>>Miss has become a generic unmarried female title, and no longer has it's place in marking the eldest female and consequestly the most eligible to be married. << I always thought that Miss was applied to all unmarried females, not just the eldest. The distinction was that 'Miss X' with no given name defaulted to the eldest, so if you wanted to talk about a younger sister, you had to include that sister's given name. So for example, I would be Miss Holland and my younger sister would be Miss Jane Holland, but we would both be Miss. If actually in conversation with Jane, though, someone would surely have addressed her to her face as 'Miss Holland', since at that point it would have been quite clear which particular Miss Holland that person (they? he/she? see how I avoid having to make a decision!!!  ) meant? Also, did the rule about adding a given name if you wanted to indicate anyone other than the eldest also apply to Mr? I have the impression it did, but wouldn't like to bet on it.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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A friend who is rathter pround to be a "Miss" visited friends in France recently, having just celebrated her 50th birthday. She was most upset to be called Madame rather than Mademoiselle. Apparently once an unmarried woman reaches a certain age she is called Madame out of respect, whether or not she is married. The impression she was given was - we've waited all this time for you to get married, so now we've given up on you and given you the title anyway!
I don't know if she got the wrong end of the stick - I'm sure there are experts out there - but she was quite taken aback.
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>A friend who is rathter pround to be a "Miss" visited friends in France recently, having just celebrated her 50th birthday. She was most upset to be called Madame rather than Mademoiselle. Apparently once an unmarried woman reaches a certain age she is called Madame out of respect, whether or not she is married. < Yes, this is how it works. But if your friend got to 50 before it happened to her, she's doing pretty well. I was called Madame at the age of 17 - just because I had someone else's 4 year-old child with me! And even without a child in tow, I've been called Madame for the last year or two, although I'm only 33. 
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newbie
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newbie
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>It strikes me that apart from the married/unmarried female thing it's only purpose is to lend a polite form of address by not using a person's first name.
The whole caper could be dispensed with by simply considering it polite to address people by their given names.<
From your stories, it seems as if there is more offense and confusion generated from the use of Mrs/Miss/Ms than there would be in dispensing with them. Here's to the scrapheap! (and less boxes to fill in on forms)
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2000
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I've always found it somewhat strange that there are three formal addresses for the female, but only one for the male. It seems perfectly logical that those three should be reduced to one and I would say that Ms. would be the most appropriate due to the fact that it's the same length as Mr. and, tying into the PC thread, it doesn't contain Mr, as does Mrs.
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