-1

Problem 1: As an Egyptian teacher working at an international school, where the speaking environment should be in English, I, students, and others used to address other teachers with the titles Mr. (his name) and Ms. (her name). I know that the title Ms. pronounces /mɪz/, but actually almost all of us used to say it /mɪs/.

Question 1: Is it correct to pronounce it that way (using S sound, not Z sound)?

Problem 2: In writing, I know we shouldn't end a sentence with a contraction (or a weak form); so when texting a male teacher, I may write something like "thanks a lot mister," and when texting a female teacher, I may write "thanks a lot miss" (even if she's married).

Question 2: Is miss here proper? Does it serve the same meaning as Ms.? If not, then what is the full form of Ms. to end the sentence properly?

Problem 3: I told my students something like the following sentence: "Ask any mister or mistress before you do that."

Question 3: Is the usage of mistress here correct? Because I just checked a dictionary and found that it's an old fashioned word that has a different meaning now.

Improve this question
6
  • 1
    Too many questions! Ms ultimately derives from "mistress" but you wouldn't call someone "mistress". How to address a teacher is a duplicate of this and this. It was common but is now old-fashioned to call teachers "sir" (not "mister") and "miss"; nowadays we generally use a name.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 27 at 13:00
  • "Ms" is an abbreviation not a contraction. The rule about not ending a sentence with a contraction (or abbreviation) isn't a real rule so it's hard to know what you're talking about. Actual contractions like "can't", "won't" don't often come at the end of sentences, but a sentence like "I can't" is totally grammatical, although in very formal writing you might not use contractions like "can't" or "don't" anywhere.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 27 at 13:04
  • @StuartF - when I was at infants and junior school in London, it was common for the kids to use 'Sir' and 'Miss' as proper nouns (e.g. I'll tell Sir what you did' or 'I saw Miss talking to my mother'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Sep 27 at 14:06
  • @StuartF - and of course we recall ER Braithwaite's 1959 book, To Sir, With Love, about his time in the late 1940s as a teacher in East London, later (1968) made into a film with Sidney Poitier as playing him. Braithwaite died aged 104 in 2016.
    – Michael Harvey
    Commented Sep 27 at 15:15
  • 3
    'Thanks a lot, Mr Smith', not 'mister'.
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Sep 27 at 17:54

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

Mrs, Miss and Ms are all considered to be abbreviations of the same word - mistress, so there are no official individual spellings of the three. However, there are different pronunciations of them:

  1. Mrs. is pronounced as /ˈmɪsɪz/ or /ˈmɪsəs/. It sounds like "miss-iz" or "miss-us." The full word "Mistress" is rarely used in modern speech, so "Mrs." has its own pronunciation.

  2. Miss is pronounced as /mɪs/. As written.

  3. Ms. is commonly pronounced as /mɪz/, to rhyme with "biz". It is described as a neutral form for when marital status is unknown or irrelevant, but in practical use it tends to be used by divorcees or older, unmarried women.

Etiquette-wise, calling someone "mistress" is very out-of-date. Nobody uses this any more. It is still fairly common to address a younger girl as "miss", and older women as "madam" (or "ma'am"). It is not common though to refer to third parties by these. They are individual titles, so saying "ask any mister" is wrong.

Even though you might directly address a teacher as sir, miss, or madam, if referring to them collectively in general you would say "teachers". So, "ask any teacher" would be the right thing to say.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    Plenty of twenty-something teachers in the local elementary school are addressed as "Ms ________". It's hardly confined to "divorcees or older, unmarried women" in the US.
    – TimR
    Commented Sep 27 at 17:27
  • @TimR If that's your title in life, then that's your title as a teacher. And in life, mizzes are women who, for whatever personal reason, don't want to be called Miss or Mrs. I didn't say it was confined to divorcees, spinsters or harridans. But it is mainly those.
    – Astralbee
    Commented Sep 28 at 17:31
  • @Astralbee In the UK, fine, but not in the US. Because the OP is Egyptian and it sounds like the school is based on a British model, then your description is likely reasonable.
    – mkennedy
    Commented Nov 23 at 1:52
3

We do not normally address a person as "mister" or "miss" (however it is pronounced) without using their name as well if we know their name and they know we know it. That would be odd.

If we do not know their name, "sir" is far better than "mister". "miss" is acceptable.

In American English we would say "Ask any teacher" not "ask any mister or mistress".

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .