Monday, October 01, 2007

Miss or Ms. ?

I've always struggled with the titles 'miss' and 'ms.' .

What exactly is the difference between the two? Aren't they both the same??

Today, I've decided to go find out. (Yes, I admit I'm abit slow about checking up on this =p)

So, here's the deal.

'Miss' is the title used for a single woman who has never married before.

'Ms.' is the title used for a woman regardless of their marital status.

Contrary to popular belief, 'Ms' is not short for 'Miss' but it is short for 'mistress' which is the female version of 'mister'.

The general idea is that the titles for men do not specify their marital status so the titles of women should also be ambiguous about it. Hence, people coined the non-marital status specific title - 'ms.'

Nowadays, 'ms' is often used in business correspondence when people do not know the marital status of the person they are liaising with.

So there you have it. the difference between 'miss' and 'ms' is that the former is a title for unmarried women and the other does not specify the marital status.

Extra trivia!

Seldom do people need the plural form of Ms, Mr, Miss and Mrs. But what are they exactly?

Here's the list:

(Mr) Messrs
(Miss) Misses
(Ms) Mses/Mss
(Mrs) Mesdames

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