# Ms. vs. Miss **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 8, 2009, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381 "2009-07-08T23:59:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/61 "2009-07-09T19:53:13Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Back in high school and college when I worked in a grocery store and then various coffee shops, I addressed all male customers as “sir” and all female customers as “ma’am.” You should have seen some of the middle-aged women–“Oh, I’m not old enough to be a MA’AM.” :rolleyes: My reply was always that I call the eight-year-old girls who come in to buy gum “ma’am,” too. But you wished you could say, “Well, you’re just the right age to be a bitch”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/62 "2009-07-09T20:09:49Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > But you wished you could say, “Well, you’re just the right age to be a bitch”. Or, in the case where I was in a coffeeshop, just beat her to death with a portafilter. ---
**Author:** ![Risha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@Risha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Risha)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/63 "2009-07-09T20:41:05Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > In my experience, “Ms” is usually only used by what used to be known as spinsters. Uh, that’s a big no. It’s the default among younger unmarried women of all sorts in my experience, and still common among the married ones. For the record, I use Ms. SpouseLastName for business and Mrs. SpouseLastName personally. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/64 "2009-07-09T21:33:25Z")
Reminds me of a “Cathy” comic strip. Her friend Andrea (a women’s lib type) is asked if it’s “Mrs or Miss?” Andrea replies “It’s MS.” And the clerk says “Oh OK then that means it’s really Miss” 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/65 "2009-07-09T21:36:09Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Her friend Andrea (a women’s lib type) is asked if it’s “Mrs or Miss?” Andrea replies “It’s MS.” And the clerk says “Oh OK then that means it’s really Miss” Yeah, that would make me want to punch someone. In the mouth. ---
**Author:** ![Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamaika_a_jamaikaiake)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/66 "2009-07-09T22:33:40Z")
> [@Markxxx](#): > > Reminds me of a “Cathy” comic strip. > > [snip] > > 🙂 I don’t understand how a post that starts this way can also end this way. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/67 "2009-07-09T22:46:54Z")
> [@Yssy](#): > > Can’t we just do away with all of them? I’m a first name gal, I want to be known by my first name and I want to call you by your first name. > > Easy Peasy… If that’s what you want to be called, then by all means. But some of us prefer to be called Ms. Lastname, at least in some contexts. For example, I’d prefer to be addressed as Ms. Lastname when I’m in my son’s classroom because Robin is too informal and therefore inappropriate, at least to me. It is a matter of personal preference. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2009, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/68 "2009-07-09T23:36:23Z")
Now that I really analyze it, I can’t think of a time that we use any title with anyone. We’re all on first-name bases. Even with suppliers. When I receive inquiries from unknown suppliers, then _sometimes_ they use Mr. Balthisar instead of my given name, but as a male, I don’t know how they address the females. Suppliers to us: first names. Us to suppliers: first names. Us to management: first names. Social life: first names. At the doctor’s office: Doctor. Anywhere I’d care to do business with (personally, not professionally), my expectation is that it would be on a first name basis. Thinking… roof, shed, painting, driveway… all first name bases. In fact, I’d be downright uncomfortable being referred to as “mister” in a face-to-face situation, and I’d think it’d be irregularly formal to address anyone by other than his (or her, or in modern usage, “their”) given name. ---
**Author:** ![lshaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e36b37/32.png) [@lshaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lshaw)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/69 "2009-07-10T05:22:09Z")
I always go by Ms. I see it analogous to “Mr.” for men, and I don’t see why it is not similarly standard in forms of address; isn’t it a whole lot easier just to address all women as “Ms”? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/70 "2009-07-10T05:59:07Z")
> [@TheMadEngineer](#): > > I’m in Connecticut. Though I have to say I have had about 0 need to use Ms. in any real context - I’m going into my third year of college and through my pre-college education, female teachers were mostly Mrs., and if not they were Miss. I had always assumed Ms. was an abreviation of Miss in the same way Mr. is of Mister, Dr. is of Doctor, and Mrs. is of Misses. I find it completely unfathomable that anyone living in an English-speaking country doesn’t know that Ms and Miss are different. Not knowing the origins of the words is understandable, but did it never occur to you that four letter words like Miss don’t usually get abbreviated at all? Didn’t you ever wonder why it was sometimes abbreviated and sometimes not? It’s not as if you ever see Mister or Mistress written in full before someone’s name. (That’s what Mrs. is short for, btw - Mistress, not Misses. Married women don’t suddenly become plural. :D) I mean, you asked on here, so it’s not as if you’re not a curious person, so it’s really odd that you missed this piece of knowledge. It’d be like not knowing that Austria and Australia are different countries, and thinking the former was just a shortening. > [@](#): > > To me, the only real gripe I have with Ms. is to me it sounds ugly and doesn’t add anything to the flow of the language. But that’s just my personal philological preference - I enjoy having my language flow and sound pretty (Further proof if this is the fact that I studied French for six years \>.\> ), so the use of a z sound just grates on me unless the name following the word sounds good with “Mizz”. Agreed, it is a bit of an ugly word when you say it aloud. It does have a very useful function, though. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/71 "2009-07-10T07:28:51Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > According to Miss Manners (though I can’t cite the date of the column), people completely misunderstand how “miss” and “ma’am” are to be used in these situations. They are not honorifics. Polite address of someone you don’t know is completely different than using Ms., Mr., Mrs., Miss as a title in front of a name. > > If addressing a waitress in a restaurant, it is never improper to address her as “miss” regardless of her marital status. This is the traditional form of respectful address to someone who is providing a service for you, or who is your junior socially (such as an older gentleman addressing a young woman, or an executive addressing an employee that she doesn’t know). > > By the same token a saleswoman at the cosmetics counter should address her customer as “ma’am” even if the customer is single and younger, as a show of respect. Marital status has nothing to do with it. > > This tradition seems to be fading as people come more to associate these as tokens of age or dating availability rather than respect, and as people more and more refuse to age gracefully. I would be interested in seeing if you could come up with the cite, because this is not at all my recollection of Miss Manners’s rulings on the matter. On many occasions she has gone to great lengths to make clear that in the customer-waitstaff relation, neither party is “socially junior” to another, and indeed, the relationship is not a social one at all. In fact, I seem to remember that MM prefers the old school forms “Excuse me, _ **waiter** _” or “Excuse me, _ **waitress** _.” I suppose I could be wrong, but this hierarchy theory strikes me as a little characteristic for somebody ordinarily so egalitarian as MM. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/72 "2009-07-10T08:27:10Z")
I had a whole kerfuffle when, as an intern–an _unpaid_intern–at a daily newspaper, circa 1970, I said the paper should start using the term Ms. and wrote a small treatise on the subject. So a picture in the society page appeared with a caption that read something like, “Ms. John McDermont, Ms. Larry North, Ms. Fritz Ockerbonk, and Ms. Harry Sack taste-test recipes for the Junior League Cookbook.” :smack: They did it wrong. And they KNEW it was wrong. The old-school people weren’t going to let some whippersnapper intern tell them what they oughta do. For those of you who wonder why it was wrong, “Ms.” is used in front of the woman’s name, not in front of her husband’s name. If it’s the husband’s name that’s important, then it has to be Mrs. Also, women who have established the habit of using their maiden name professionally may be addressed as Miss, no matter how old they are or how many times they’ve been married, for instance Miss Barbra Streisand, Miss Lauren Bacall. Should one need an honorific. These all derive from Mrs., abbreviation for “mistress,” and Mr., abbreviation for “master.” At some time in the past, not everybody got this honorific. Ordinary people might just be “Goodwife,” or “Goody” for short. I think one had to be a property owner to be a Mr. or Mrs. “Master” is now used (and rarely) for preadolescent boys. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/73 "2009-07-10T13:25:09Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > I would be interested in seeing if you could come up with the cite, because this is not at all my recollection of Miss Manners’s rulings on the matter. On many occasions she has gone to great lengths to make clear that in the customer-waitstaff relation, neither party is “socially junior” to another, and indeed, the relationship is not a social one at all. In fact, I seem to remember that MM prefers the old school forms “Excuse me, _ **waiter** _” or “Excuse me, _ **waitress** _.” > > I suppose I could be wrong, but this hierarchy theory strikes me as a little characteristic for somebody ordinarily so egalitarian as MM. I can’t find a cite for this specific issue but here is a related one, from her book, which BTW countermands my claim. > [@Miss Manners](#): > > Dear Miss Manners: > > My co-workers and I are bank tellers and must frequently refer to our customers as “Sir,” “Miss,” and “Ma’am.” What is the proper way to refer to a woman? Do you refer to a married woman as “Ma’am” and single woman as “Miss”? If you do not know the marital status of the woman, is an older woman called “Ma’am” and a younger woman called “Miss”? Is it insulting to call a young woman “Ma’am”? > > Gentle Reader: > > Any lady old enough to do her own banking business may be safely addressed as “Ma’am.” No young gentleman would be insulted to be addressed as “Sir,” would he? Oddly enough, “Miss” used without a name is not strictly proper in English, where it has a kind of slangy, cheeky connotation (which the equivalent in other languages does not have). Perhaps that is because it suggests that the lady’s youth and marital status are being too carefully noted by people whose business this information is none of, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/74 "2009-07-10T13:33:18Z")
Further wisdom: > [@Miss Manners](#): > > When the addressee is not known, salutations are “Dear Madam or Sir” or “Ladies and Gentlemen,” not “Dear Ace Laundry” or “Hi there.” > > Why are the boys in the back snickering? “Madam,” gentlemen, is no longer funny. We are not going to lose this very proper term because of anybody’s improper thoughts, the way we lost the once all-purpose and respectable title of “Mistress.” ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/75 "2009-07-10T13:37:21Z")
> [@Yssy](#): > > Can’t we just do away with all of them? I’m a first name gal, I want to be known by my first name and I want to call you by your first name. > > Easy Peasy… I am a 52-year-old male and I hate it when a sales clerk reads my name off my credit card and says, “Thanks Cooking.” But it’s not because I’m some old fart, I hated it just as much when I was 25. It assumes a familiarity that it shouldn’t. When I meet someone socially or for business, though, I always use my first name, and at parties I don’t even bother giving my last name since nobody will remember it. But if I’m paying you for a service I expect to be Mr. Gas until I invite you otherwise. I’m not saying I’m right and you’re wrong, just offering the opposite point of view. ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/76 "2009-07-10T14:29:46Z")
> [@Jamaika\_a\_jamaikaiake](#): > > I don’t understand how a post that starts this way can also end this way. It skipped brain processing in the middle, apparently. > [@lshaw](#): > > I always go by Ms. I see it analogous to “Mr.” for men, and I don’t see why it is not similarly standard in forms of address; isn’t it a whole lot easier just to address all women as “Ms”? Some people get all bent out of shape when you try to change the conventions they grew up with. > [@CookingWithGas](#): > > I am a 52-year-old male and I hate it when a sales clerk reads my name off my credit card and says, “Thanks Cooking.” [snip] But if I’m paying you for a service I expect to be Mr. Gas until I invite you otherwise. Agreed. This also applies to children–adults should be Ms. or Mr. Surname (or Ms./Mr. SurnameFirstLetter, if they’re more familiar) until the adult tells them there’s another mode of address they’d prefer. Back when I had a nametag at my job, I also hated it when customers to whom I hadn’t introduced myself would call me by name after reading it off the tag. ---
**Author:** ![BobArrgh](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobarrgh/32/2881_2.png) [@BobArrgh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobArrgh)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/77 "2009-07-10T14:56:57Z")
On the subject of using titles, I used to work for a Christian organization. It was generally accepted to call people “Dr.” if you didn’t specifically know otherwise. I was told, “It is better to ‘Doctor’ a brother than to ‘Brother’ a doctor.” ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/78 "2009-07-10T15:25:45Z")
> [@Shot\_From\_Guns](#): > > Some people get all bent out of shape when you try to change the conventions they grew up with. Absolutely. Some people even got upset when they tried to take away those nice colored drinking fountains from the niggers. :rolleyes: Yes, it’s true that as a general rule, everybody hates change and everybody hates social changes most of all. It’s totally human. It’s also futile in the long run and often hateful in the short run. The history of women in American society is that they were to be kept in their place, consciously or unconsciously. While one can understand the resistance to this change, understanding is as far as decency allows one to go. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/79 "2009-07-10T15:46:00Z")
> [@liberty3701](#): > > I’m a young married woman who kept her maiden name. I use Ms., and I know I’m not alone in that. With an attitude like that, I’m surprised that you didn’t end up an old maid, working at the library! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Shot\_From\_Guns](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ccd318/32.png) [@Shot\_From\_Guns](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shot_From_Guns)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2009, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381/80 "2009-07-10T15:49:36Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > With an attitude like that, I’m surprised that you didn’t end up an old maid, working at the library! _Spinster_, **harry** , you mean _spinster_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ms-vs-miss/502381.md?page=5)