[Sigia-l] What do you call Mr Miss Ms

[Jon Hanna]

> m o r r y wrote:
> > Is Mr/Miss/Ms/Mrs called a title, a salutation or some other name?
>
> I had thought this was called an honorific, but that word appears to
> apply only to those titles that denote elevated social status (e.g.,
> Sir, Count, Baroness, etc.).
>
> The American Heritage dictionary refers to Mr./Mrs./Ms. as "courtesy
> titles"; Merriam-Webster uses the slightly more awkward "conventional
> titles of courtesy".

They are indeed honorifics, and historically they do place one above a serf
or slave and hence is an elevated social status relatively speaking.
Further, within noble and royal households the terms would have only been
used for servants with a high rank relative to the other servants, or those
who had special skills which placed them somewhat outside of the hierarchy
of more interchangable and replaceable servants.

"Courtesy title" is apparently a term to fit their continued usage with a
more republican and egalitarian society. That said it smacks of ignorance of
the term "honorific"!

FWIW a "salutation" is a greeting or opening to a communication, this would
include "hi", "Dear sir/madam", "'sup?" and also a bare honorific and name
"Mr. Smith," when used to start a letter etc.

As far as use on a website or other such similar I would recommend taking
advantage of the relative informality of the Internet and avoiding them
altogether, or make them completely freeform and completely optional.
Between language differences, and various political differences with some or
all honorifics there is more risk of giving offence in using them than in
omitting them.