{"id":11079,"date":"2012-05-27T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=11079"},"modified":"2016-11-09T01:11:28","modified_gmt":"2016-11-09T09:11:28","slug":"what-mrs-is-short-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2012\/05\/what-mrs-is-short-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What “Mrs.” is Short For"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jonathon T. asks: Why is there an r in Mrs. when it’s pronounced misses?<\/div>\n
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Gloria Steinem who, in the 1970s, helped popularize “Ms.” as a marital-neutral abbreviation for women.<\/p><\/div>\n

You may have wondered, if you\u2019ve ever thought about it, why there is an \u201cr\u201d in \u201cMrs.\u201d when it\u2019s generally spoken as \u201cmissus\u201d (also sometimes spelled \u201cmissis\u201d).\u00a0 \u201cMrs.\u201d first popped up as an abbreviation for \u201cmistress\u201d in the late 16th century.\u00a0 At the time, \u201cmistress\u201d didn\u2019t popularly have the negative connotation it often does today, namely referring to a woman other than a man\u2019s wife who he has an affair with.\u00a0 Instead, back then \u201cmistress\u201d, deriving from the Old French \u201cmaistresse\u201d (female master), was just the feminine form of \u201cmister\/master\u201d.\u00a0 \u201cMistress\u201d itself first popped up in English around the 14th century, originally meaning \u201cfemale teacher, governess\u201d.<\/p>\n

By the 16th century \u201cmistress\u201d referred to any woman, with neither \u201cmistress\u201d nor \u201cmister\u201d referencing one\u2019s marital status.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until around the late 17th century that the marital status distinction began coming into play.<\/p>\n

Once \u201cmistress\u201d popularly took on the alternate definition of a married man\u2019s lover on the side, people almost universally stopped pronouncing \u201cMrs.\u201d as \u201cmistress\u201d due to the negative implication.\u00a0 This change began as early as the late 17th century and by the early to mid-19th century, the \u201cmistress\u201d pronunciation nearly completely disappeared in favor of the more socially acceptable \u201cmissus\u201d, which was itself just a contracted version of the now taboo \u201cmistress\u201d.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, at least from a language evolution standpoint, while \u201cmistress\u201d started out being completely respectable and eventually was sullied, the alternative pronunciation \u201cmissus\u201d, that we still use today, actually was somewhat frowned upon until around the 18th century.\u00a0 Before this, \u201cmissus\u201d itself was considered a vulgar form of \u201cmistress\u201d.<\/p>\n

Around the same time \u201cMrs.\u201d showed up in the late 16th century, the abbreviations \u201cMs.\u201d and \u201cMiss\u201d popped up, both also being short for \u201cmistress\u201d. Unlike the other two, \u201cMs.\u201d quickly fell out of favor and \u201cMiss\u201d and \u201cMrs.\u201d were much more commonly used until the late 20th century when \u201cMs.\u201d once again became popular.<\/p>\n

In the early 20th century, \u201cMrs.\u201d was firmly entrenched as an abbreviation for a married woman and \u201cMiss\u201d was used for non-married women, but there was no widely accepted abbreviation for a woman whose marital status was unknown.\u00a0 As such, \u201cMs.\u201d was suggested as a way to refer to such a woman in writing, as noted in the 1901 Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts issue:<\/p>\n

There is a void in the English language which, with some diffidence, we undertake to fill. Everyone has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman. To call a maiden Mrs. is only a shade worse than to insult a matron with the inferior title Miss. Yet it is not always easy to know the facts… Now, clearly, what is needed is a more comprehensive term which does homage to the sex without expressing any views as to their domestic situation, and what could be simpler or more logical than the retention of what the two doubtful terms have in common. The abbreviation “Ms.” is simple, it is easy to write, and the person concerned can translate it properly according to circumstances. For oral use it might be rendered as “Mizz,” which would be a close parallel to the practice long universal in many bucolic regions, where a slurred Mis’ does duty for Miss. and Mrs. alike.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Despite this very public suggestion and several similar ones through the next half century, this usage didn\u2019t widely catch on at first.\u00a0 This all changed in the 1970s when Ms. Magazine<\/em> was first published.\u00a0 At this time, a friend of the co-founder of the magazine, Gloria Steinem, heard someone suggest \u201cMs.\u201d as a title for all women, whether married or not, and Steinem decided to use it as the name of the magazine.\u00a0 After this, \u201cMs.\u201d finally started to see the light of day, being the female equivalent of \u201cMr.\u201d, which \u201cMrs.\u201d had actually originally been.<\/p>\n

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