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July 18, 2004
Get some manners
Miss Manners' take on blogs.
Interesting.
Did you know there is a difference between Miss, Ms. and Ms (the last without a period)? Well there is.
Off to church. Vaya con Dios amigos.
Oh, and I almost forgot, another librarian gives his take on how he feels the ALA=Democratic Party. I couldn't have said it better.
Posted by Matthew at July 18, 2004 10:21 AM
Comments
I knew there was a difference between Miss and Ms. (My assumption about Ms is that it's the brit usage as they don't use periods with Mr or Mrs) Although I had to laugh, one of the young EAs at our school thought Miss was for unmarried women while Ms. was used only by married women who didn't want to use "Mrs." and/or go by their husbands surnames.
On our teaching staff, we have one teacher who has never been married and she is most definitely "Miss"--she is not Mrs. and most definitely not "Ms."; another teacher who is now divorced, but has always used Ms. and her maiden name, and she is not "Mrs."
What bugged me this past year is that our new principal couldn't be bothered to remember who was Miss/Ms./Mrs. I'm not married and, not being as fussy as my above mentioned coworkers, I'll answer to Miss or Ms. I honestly didn't think it would bother me having the principal call me Mrs. but it did. And I know why: Because she is an adult and she CAN remember to use the correct form of address. I forgive the kids for it because when you're in elementary (especially the younger grades) every woman in the school is "Mrs." As they get older you correct them and they learn but I can handle it from the kids. Besides, I'm just happy if they can say my last name correctly!
So what is the differnece with Ms (no period)?
s/
Posted by: slashgirl at July 19, 2004 05:42 PM
(I had to restrain myself I was going to answer that Ms without a period was after menopause.)
Ms (no period) is for a person either married or single that prefers that form of addreess, it is pronounced Mizz.
Ms. is an abbreviation of miss it is pronounced... well... miss.
Mrs. is of course an abbreviation of Mistress which seems like something one would not call a married woman.
While some dictionaries, especially online ones, differ in this Letitia Baldrige and I agree on this.
Posted by: Matthew at July 19, 2004 07:36 PM
I'm afraid I have to disagree with you and Letitia. According to my lovely Merriam Websters 11th Collegiate Dictionary, Ms. is not an abbreviation of "Miss" (they say it's most likely a combo of Miss & Mrs; Wikipedia says it's been around as long as Miss & Mrs). They don't even include Ms without the period. They have ms which is millisecond.
Ha! We can't even agree on forms of address!
s/
Posted by: slashgirl at July 21, 2004 04:55 PM