z

Young Writers Society


Abbreviations question



User avatar
5 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 890
Reviews: 5
Thu Jan 04, 2007 1:22 pm
de_budding says...



Can any one tell me why the two items Mrs and Ms are conventionally treated as abbreviations, even though they can be written in no other way?

Dan x
"One who understands much displays a greater simplicity of character than one who understands little."
-Alexander Chase
  





User avatar
2058 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 32885
Reviews: 2058
Thu Jan 04, 2007 9:08 pm
Emerson says...



Do you mean as in.. Mrs being "Mister" and Ms being "Missus" (I think thats Mrs....)? Ms might be "Miss"

I think that is what you are getting at.
“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  





User avatar
614 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 1106
Reviews: 614
Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:40 pm
Swires says...



Mr- Mister
Mr - Master
Mrs - Missus
Ms - Miss/Missus
Messrs - is the plural form of both Mr. and Monsieur. ie. Mister Mooney BUT Messrs. Mooney wormtail padfoot and prongs.
Previously known as "Phorcys"
Witherwings Harry Potter RPG
  





User avatar
5 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 890
Reviews: 5
Fri Jan 05, 2007 1:41 pm
de_budding says...



well,
I am only interested in Mrs and Ms as they are unique (apparently) in that they have no refrence to full words, missus is just the phonetic spelling same as the alternative ones missis or Thomas Hardy's "Mis'ess". Missis also is just an informal way to refer to some ones wife same as missus (check teh urban dictionarys for that one). But as you can see the alleged "abrviation" contains an 'R' which is not in any of the phonetic spellings or informal ways in which we refer to a mans wife.

What i was jabbing at was why do we treat these as abreviatios, it's been bugging me for a while. One of my lecturers suggested that it is a contraction of the title "Mistress", the feminine of "Mister" or "Master".
Mistress though refers to an unmarried woman or a husbands 'bit on the side' so that just furthers my questions.

as for Ms, this has less leads. Once again i 'heard' (or read) some where a while ago about this being a Type-o in a journal or newspaper that was then sensatniolised by some independentd woman as a mystery prefix woman could use to hide the martial status. It doesn't refer to anyhing and doesn't imly anything so why do we even use?

One person suggested it is for woman who have been divorced several times. so that they can hide there current status?! soudns to me like a prefix for woman who have been divorced or re-married several times but just don't want you to know exactly which and hwo many times.

So if any one can find more info i'm still in the woods.

dan x
"One who understands much displays a greater simplicity of character than one who understands little."
-Alexander Chase
  








It doesn’t smell old, it just smells like a bad idea.
— James Hoffman