h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I, for one, do not mourn the demise of the 'ress' suffix.

In older texts I find the phrase "negress" to be particularly irritating.

The similarly irritating habit of taking "chairman" and making it "chairlady" has not disappeared in my part of the world. I don't know why it bothers me, but it do.

Two points for 'tonsils revenge'. Firstly, the suffix is '-ess', not '-ress'. It just happens that actor, author and waiter all end in 'r', so the ending looks like it's '-ress'. However, words like princess, countess and goddess all show the correct suffix.

Secondly, why do you object to this suffix? There are many situations where it is necessary to refer to a female rather than a male. Or would you rather have Prince Anne, Prince Edward and his wife the Duke of Wessex. A negress is just a female negro - what else could you call her? And as for female lions...

Because 'Princess' is a cadet word of 'Prince'.

One of the teams around here is the 'Wildcats'.
The girl's teams are the 'Wildkittens'...

It is the miniaturization that I object to.

The people at the insurance company keep addressing things to my spousal unit as 'Mrs. tonsil revenge' and she's the one who initiated the policy, signed the papers.

I was looking at a website for a British law firm the other day.
The males all had initials before their last names, the females were all Kate, Ann, and Chris...

and one point for you
it is 'tonsil revenge'

Perhaps you could suggest the teams be renamed Wildtoms and Wildqueens.

Sorry about getting your name wrong. I didn't realise I had until I'd posted the message and I was too tired to do anything about it.

All '-ess' words can be regarded as cadet versions of the original, be it prince / princess, lion / lioness or negro / negress. I still don't see the problem. However, I do agree that having a female team called the 'Wildkittens' is a bit much. Couldn't they come up with something better than that? And why did the female team name have to be in any way related to the male team name?

I also agree with your objection to letters being addressed to 'Mrs Husband's Name'. I refuse to open anything addressed to Mrs R Heath or Mr & Mrs R Heath. In the first case, there's no such person; I'll be Mrs R Heath on the day Richard changes his name to Irene. In the second case, I refuse to be treated as a mere appendage to my husband. I am a person in my own right, thank you.

In the case of the law firm website, it might not be a 'company policy' thing. They may have asked their employees how they wanted to be listed. Personally, I'd have my initial, but some women might prefer to have their name listed.

In a few months time, I hope to have the title "Doctor." This will not be the title of medical doctor. There isn't an equivalent Doctress, luckily. However, the assumption is still made that a Doctor of a scary science subject (Physics) is male. hmph.

I have an MSci. That's the degree of Master in Science. Technically, it makes me a Mistress. LOL. These days however, a person with a Mastery doesn't get addressed "Master," so I don't have to be addressed "Mistress."

What;s the thing with Ms and Miss and Mrs? I am unmarried. My correct title (except for my degree) is Miss. Why then do people insist on addressing me as the annoying "Ms"? especially when I've filled in forms and indicated title as "Miss." Then you get the forms which have the choices Mr/Mrs/Ms and none other. grrrr. (I appreciate SOME people might prefer Ms, but I don't and I don't want it to be assumed I do.) What does Ms mean anyway? Mrs is short for Mistress and Miss is the full title for an unmarried woman. Ms is just something made up to be somewhere between the two.

Strictly speaking, both Mrs and Miss are abbreviations of 'mistress', the difference being marital status. Ms is used to hide marital status and, like Aendr, it annoys me to be addressed as Ms. I'm married and proud of it. When filling in forms I always put Mrs. If the form doesn't give this as an option, and if it gives a space for 'other' title, I put Mrs in the space provided. I am *not* Ms.

I could be wrong, but I have often felt that there are two possibilities for the origin of 'Ms', both of which are probably wrong:

1. Divorcees who didn't want to be 'Mrs' any more, but who felt they couldn't really go back to being 'Miss'.
2. Feminists who didn't want to be 'defined' by their marital status.

I annoy people who ask to be called ms. I'm an grumpy bugger, so I usually enquire if they're a frustated spinster or a lesbian. He, it either starts a conversation or an argument, and I enjoy both... I am forver being called Mrs. Knight, as that is Bruce's surname, but we're not married. I've got fed up of correcting people, so I usually just leave it. what I do find strange is going to places and being asked "and you are Mrs??", I'm only 21, so why do people assume I'm Mrs anything? I'd expect the default assumption to be miss, at my age

Oh, and I think 2. is probably the likely origin of ms.

I did a Google search and came up with this:

"Many of us think of Ms. or Ms as a fairly recent invention of the women's movement, but in fact the term was first suggested as a convenience to writers of business letters by such publications as the Bulletin of the American Business Writing Association (1951) and The Simplified Letter, issued by the National Office Management Association (1952). Ms. is now widely used in both professional and social contexts. As a courtesy title Ms. serves exactly the same function that Mr. does for men, and like Mr. it may be used with a last name alone or with a full name. Furthermore, Ms. is correct regardless of a woman's marital status, thus relegating that information to the realm of private life, where many feel it belongs anyway. Some women prefer Miss or Mrs., however, and courtesy requires that their wishes be respected." (Source: http://www.wordwizard.com/clubhouse/founddiscuss.asp?Num=2348 )

Unfortunately, it seems that there are people / companies out there who choose to ignore the part about respecting the wishes of the individual.

Another annoying aspect of the Mr & Mrs issue is household utilities etc. who refuse to acknowledge that there are two of us and will only enter one name on the account.

I don't particularly like the term Ms, but it is useful to address people (verbally or in writing) when you don't know if they're Miss or Mrs & want to be more formal than using their first name.

Why not address someone as X. Smith, in writing and ommit the title? That's what I do at work.

I told my spousal unit to start telling them her title was "Sergeant".
That should be hard to get wrong.

I'm looking forward to being a Doctor to get rid of the Ms thing.

I always understood Ms to be a divorcee thing, rather than a feminist thing.

I also understand that Miss is not the same as Mistress and has distinctly different usage historically. Miss was used for maidens, Mistress for women who worked at a trade or who were married and therefore Mistress of a home. It had distinctions in ranking in society as well, someone with the title of Miss sits lower at table than a Mistress unless her birth gives a higher rank.

So, is it likely that there'll be 'drivespersons' and (sorry) 'snipespersons' in the news sometime?

Ooops! sorry, that was in reply to #20

The Oxford English Dictionary states that both 'Miss' and 'Mrs' are abbreviations of Mistress, although it is true (AFAIK) that Miss has always been used for unmarried women. And, yes, unmarried women did sit lower at table than married women. However, 'Mistress' was the title of a woman who had control over servants, or was the acknowledged head of the household, or was possessor or owner of something. (Source: http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-mis1.htm) None of these definitions of 'Mistress' requires the woman to be married, although a female head of the household usually was. So I stand by what I posted earlier.

Fair enough.

It has been a while since I studied such things seriously.

As we now live in an era where someone's gender, supposedly, has no bearing on their ability to gain credit etc. then surely there is no need to have the titles Mr, Mrs, Ms etc.Is the reason that we still pursue such titles the fact that we are too uptight to use someon's first name.e.g. if writing a letter to a Toni Basil and you are unsure as to whether they are male or female why not just address them as 'Dear Toni' rather than 'Dear Mr/Ms Basil'?

If a man spells it 'Toni', he's probably gay anyway.

B