Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 59. Today we're going to cover
the word origins of Miss, MRS. , MS. , and MR. Maybe we should take a note and look at
the pronunciation because I know a lot of students of ESL sometimes have
difficulty, especially with female titles and more specifically with this MS what
we should pronounce it like MS M-I-Z almost like we're spelt like that. A lot
of students sometimes see that MS. , so they still say miss or MRS. . They get
confused with that. So this one's easy. This is miss is pronounced just like
what it looks, looks like. You know, that's a regular word too, like something is
missing. So it's pronounced the same way. miss. And the MRS is almost pronounced like
it's the plural of the word miss. It's actually pronounced as MRS. Okay. And
then this one is MS. and MR. usually is there's no problem. Everybody knows that
one. Okay. Let's get back to... let's get back to the note here. The words miss and
MRS. were originally formed as a short form of mistress. So originally they were
kind of equal. It didn't really have anything to do with whether you were
married or not married. At least going back to like fifteen, sixteen hundred's.
They were just short forms of mistress. All right. Miss or I guess Mrs. as well
dating back to its use during the 1500s and sixteen hundred's had two meanings.
A female employer of a domestic staff which probably ended up being the wife
in most cases. You know the head woman of the house was probably the one who hired
you know , maids and butlers and stuff like this , especially in rich families.
All right. So that's, that's how it got that meaning. Now the other meaning is
the meaning that we use today for mistress. So it could have also meant an
unmarried woman having an affair with a married man. So that's the meaning that
we mostly use today for mistress. That's why it might sound funny today to
realize that Miss and MRS. actually came from mistress. Okay.
Over time MRS. started to be used for older women and miss for younger and
then eventually miss was just thought of as being an unmarried woman and MRS.
was more for the married woman. So over time that kind of formed. Okay.
Let's continue. MR. was originally used as an abbreviation for master Yeah.
There's probably a lot of feminist today that might not be happy about this.
They might not think this is exactly PC anymore. They may not want to know. They
might get angry to find out the origin, but you do, I do remember the old story
like the play and the story "Les Miserables" Remember they made it to a play and I
remember they had a song and they and in that song there was a line " Master of the
house" (da ,da, da, da) so master of the house really just and the man. The man of
the house. They did use the term master originally. So MR. ended up being
short for master. Okay. Okay. Let's continue. Now the M-S. , the MS, even though some
people said it originated earlier it didn't really get to be used a lot until
the feminist movement in the 1960's. So MS. came to be used in full force during the
feminist movement because miss traditionally identified a woman as
being unmarried and MRS. identified her as married. Okay. Feminists combined
the two because they thought it was unfair that MR. concealed both age
and marital status. So they though this was a disadvantage and so they created a
third one. So that's why today we have three titles for women but only one
title for a man. Okay. Status right titles for women do not ... by using MS. it
was considered equal to a man's MR. title. The factor of marriage is removed
because if somebody said if a woman uses MS.
You can't be a hundred percent sure whether she's married or unmarried. Okay.
Even though initially you know, when they first started doing this in the 60s, it
was said to be used mostly by single feminists at that time. And today that's
not as true as much. Today many married business women may use it to take
marital status out of the equation. So just in case they felt uncomfortable
with that. I don't know if it would make a difference or not but you know whether
somebody might think you know does that make any difference with promotions
probably not probably. Probably the company if knows you're married or not married. Or
maybe it may make her feel awkward in other business situations that you know
wherever she's meeting may may know that oh she's not married yet she's only a
miss instead of a MRS. or maybe that she is married I don't know but either
way it takes it out of the equation and you don't know. Just like MR. you
don't know if he is married or not married. This way it was considered to be
equal. Okay. Anyway, this is how it came about and that's why today women have
again three titles and men have just one title. Anyway, I hope it was
informative. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.