Miss, Mrs., or Ms.

Students may ask us for advice about what to call people mentioned in an academic research paper or thesis. Although in Thailand, official academic records and business offices still use the titles Miss and Mrs., in the English-speaking world, things have changed since the late 1960s. Now in America or the United Kingdom, the only people who are correctly called or introduced as Miss are little girls. The abbreviation Ms., pronounced as Mizz, was used in English in the 1600s, but then it was not used again until the 1960s and 1970s. It was considered that in a fair and equal society, it was unacceptable that the abbreviation Mr. should not tell us about whether a man is married or not, but the terms Miss or Mrs. do. In academic situations in America, some ajarns felt that if female graduate students are known to be married by using the title Mrs., they may not be seen as devoted to their work. Perhaps they will be more interested in family and children than in doing research. In an office context, it was also thought to be strange that it was necessary for women, but not men, to declare if they are married. If women were known to be married, it might be seen in some English-speaking offices as a distraction from their dedication to work. If they were not married, employers might wonder why not. All of this information about marital status has nothing to do with a female employee’s ability to do the job. For this reason, it was considered only fair to change the system of identifying women as Miss or Mrs. The abbreviation Ms. was recommend in the early 1900s by some writers who suggested that it would be easier to use when we are not sure of whether a woman is married or not. It was recommended for use in writing business letters. In 1969, Ms. became the title of a new magazine founded to discuss the rights of women, although the magazine was not distributed until 1972, Also in 1972, the United States Government Printing Office approved using Ms. in official government documents. In 1976 Marvel Comics introduced a new superhero named Ms. Marvel, described as the first feminist superhero. In 1974 in the United Kingdom, the UK Passport Office officially permitted women to call themselves Ms. (pronounced Miz) on their passports instead of Mrs. or Miss.

These developments in the West occurred decades ago, but have yet to be widespread in Asia. For example, the Singapore Government refers to women who are married as Madame X in official correspondence. The use of the French word Madame would seem old fashioned in most of the Western World. Most English language publications in the Western world now use Ms. to describe women unless they have personally stated that they prefer to be called Miss or Mrs. These points are useful for Thai students and ajarns because it is considered respectful to call people what they wish to be called. If a student is writing an email to an American or British lecturer who is not a professor, it can be difficult to know what to call them. If they have doctorates, it is possible to write to them as Dr. X. However some ajarns do not have doctorates, and even those who do may prefer not to be called Dr. If the ajarn is a woman, it is safe to write to them as Ms. X. Otherwise the student will be making an assumption about whether the ajarn is married or not, and that guess may not be accurate. If we Google the name of ajarns in the Western world, sometimes we can find their names cited on official university webpages that may give us an idea of how they prefer to be called. This is the safest way to avoid offending an ajarn from another country. Sometimes in Thai English we see that students have made the mistake of writing out the abbreviation Mr. as Mister or Mrs. as Missus. This should not be done. We should never mention an ajarn on an academic research paper or thesis as

Mister Khamsing Srinawk

Instead of this, to be correct we should write:

Mr. Khamsing Srinawk

Similarly, we should never write

Missus Suweeriya Sirisingh

Instead, it would be correct and most respectful to write:

Ms. Suweeriya Sirisingh

unless the ajarn in question has clearly stated a preference online or in publications to being referred to as Mrs. or Miss.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)