My name has been the topic of many questions throughout my life. Some people assume I’m a man. I’ve included a title in my email signature to try to steer people in the right direction.
One of our business associates always addresses me in e-mail and by phone as “Ms. Jo”. We’ve worked together for a long time and I recently assured him that he didn’t have to use a title. His response was that he was raised that way. It’s a form of respect.
It’s All About Honor
That got me to thinking. Is it used throughout the US and in other countries or is it just a “southern thing”?
The official word for the title is “honorific”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_honorifics
According to merriam-webster, it is
“conferring or conveying honor”
Here’s the link to the definition of “honor”. It is a long list.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/honor
According to the Wikipedia article,
“Miss and Mrs., both derived from the then formal Mistress, like Mister did not originally indicate marital status. Ms. was another acceptable abbreviation for Mistress in England in the 17th and 18th centuries. During the 19th century, however, Mrs. and Miss came to be associated almost exclusively with marital status.Ms. was popularized as an alternative in the 20th century.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms.
My guess is that when people immigrated to America, they were used to calling each other by title so if you didn’t have a title, they had to refer to you as something. To call someone by their first name, would be rude.
“Mister, usually written in its abbreviated form Mr. (US) or MR (UK), is a commonly used English honorific for men under the rank of knighthood. The title ‘Mr’ derived from earlier forms of master, as the equivalent female titles Mrs, Miss, and Ms all derived from earlier forms of mistress. Master is sometimes still used as an honorific for boys and young men.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr.
When Do You Stop?
For me, after all of this time, it seems weird to address people older than me by their first name. When do you graduate to a full-fledged adult that you can do this? I’m also of the mindset that if you are younger than me (not in a work role) you shouldn’t call me by my first name unless I tell you to.
It’s a respect thing. I’ve had people younger than me do it and it grates me.
Again, it’s the way I was raised. Most of the time, a woman would be Ms. or Mrs. either first or last name, but sometimes the man was just his first name.
I’m interested to know if these types of titles were used where you grew up.
Hope you learned something today in this blog.
Remember, we came to America to get away from England and we might have escaped England, but England hasn’t escaped us.
Enjoyed your thoughts…My deep South upbringing always required an “honorific” with a first name for elder friends….when more formality was required (until permission was granted), the ” honorific” proceeded the last name…my grandmother raised me .