My wife received a letter the other day with the title “MS” leading her name.  This caused me some confusion, since I can’t imagine anything leading my wife.  Also, she has been a Mrs. for many years.

As I spent time considering my initial reaction, with some assistance from my significant other, it occurred to me that this is the new millenium.  Women don’t want to be tagged as some mans’ wife…they want to have their own identity.  It is also true, I was assisted, that if you are writing a professional letter to a woman you do not know, how are you to determine if she is a Miss or a Mrs., huh?  Yes I pointed out, but then why not simply write the name without the title and besides, this particular letter came from a friend and she knows my wife is a Mrs.

Well, obviously this line of inquiry and curiosity was interesting only to me, so I thought perhaps I should research the topic at the library.  Besides, I had a couple of hours to kill since I felt I should stay away from the house for at least that long.

Where did the custom for use of the personal title arise?  What was the reason for it?  Maybe it was an early public relations strategy to soften up the receiver of the letter with a title of their very own:

“Dear Mister Tremaine:

The Hospital of Our Lady of Perpetual Income here in Paris is again conducting our annual medieval fund drive.  A donation from your most honorable, propriotous self would help us buy much needed new equipment such as stainless steel surgical saws and sterilized leeches.

As a most benevolent philanthropist in your own right, please consider helping us with a donation of 5, 10, 15 or more francs.  For your Christian consideration the Bishop has promised to place your name on St. Peters’ e-mail list.

Thankfully yours,

Fr. D’Chane

Hospital Administrator”

Or some such letter consistent with the era, which this one is not because obviously they didn’t have stainless steel in the middle ages.  Further study on my part proved this theory to be incorrect, however, because postal sucking-up is a fairly recent innovation.

I found, however, that the title “mister” is a variation of the root Germanic word meaning “master”.  The original definition of the word meant “tradesman” or “craftsman”.  If this follows, in the vernacular of today’s American youth, a “party-meister” would probably be a professional caterer of some sort…maybe.

As far back as the 13^th century the term “mister” was used as a prefix title of a man “not entitled to be addressed as ‘Sir’ or ‘Lord’.”  In this chain of respect, a “mister” ranks somewhere between a “squire” and a “butthead.”  Obviously society has come a long way in 700 years.  In todays’ equal opportunity environment these titles are not mutually exclusive of one another and a person can be a “sir”, a “mister” and a “butthead” all at the same time.

By comparison, all the prefix titles referring to women have spread from the same source.  “Miss”, “Mrs.” and “Ms” have all been derived from the word “mistress” whose original reference was to “a woman who rules or has control.”  As you can imagine, this term was used almost exclusively with married women.  An example of this would be the fact that I am writing this at the library.

The abbreviation “Mrs.” was actually an abbreviation of the word “mistress.”  The term “misses” was a vulgar mispronunciation of the abbreviation by the lower levels of society at the time; probably the “butthead” class.  During a period in history when everyone began falling into this class except the King and a few Duke and Lord-types, this pronunciation became accepted…much the same as “butthead” is today being accepted as a title preceding any member of Americas’ legislative or executive branches of government, as in “the Butthead Senator So and So”.

The term “Ms”, the most recent incarnation of the word, was developed in the United States in the 1970’s as a needed title for women regardless of marital states or (in the new millenium) regardless of gender.  The title itself is an enigma in language since it actually has no word associated with it – that is, the abbreviation came before the term.  The word since connected with it is pronounced “Mzzzzzzz”.  I don’t know why, nor will anybody tell me.

My research, overall, found that the usage of these numerous titles originated as a courtesy forwarded by people to classify others as to their status.   As society expanded new titles were added such esquire, lady, dame and baronvon (as in Baronvon Schmooteneven) and many others.

We as Americans, however, are not to be outdone by some previous, primitive culture.  In an effort to further classify, categorize and pigeonhole members of the modern citizenry to fit into a 9 digit Social Security number, we have developed several uniquely American usages…the ACRONYM and the INITIALISM.

The initialism is the abbreviation of any group of educational, professional or organizational names or titles, by their first letters, to identify the wearer.  Examples of these include; Ph.D. (Doctor of Philosophy), C.P.A. (Certified Public Accountant) and N.A.A.W.B. (National Association of Angle Worm Breeders).

The acronym is much the same except a word is formed by using the first letters of the name in question.  Often the word formed means something- at least to the people who make them up.  An example of this would be the National Institute of Mind Readers and Oracle Distributors (NIMROD).

As you can expect, the United States Government is the most A.B.O. (Acronym Bound Organization) on the face of the planet.  The government uses these verbal tools to the point that linguistics professional will get hopelessly lost during a two-minute conversation.  It should also come as no surprise that the largest manufacturer of acronyms and initialisms in the government is the U.S. military.  These people have come up with such abbreviations as S.A.C. (Strategic Air Command), A.S.A.P. (As Soon As Possible) and F.U.B.A.R. (Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition)[1].

These hideous inventions can be further used as even more titles to clarify a persons place in the world by showing his/her accomplishments or professional associations.  My wife’s’ desk plate, for example, has all sorts of things following her name like; R.N., B.S.N., N.O.W.A., S.T.A.T., or some such E.A.V. (Excess Abbreviated Verbiage).

I think these name appendages could be dangerously used to camouflage a persons true moniker, kinda’ like a moustache and beard for nomenclature.  Any wanted criminals trying to hide themselves from the law could cover his name with all these extra letters and he wouldn’t have to use an alias.  The police and the F.B.I. (government initialism for Finding Bad Individuals) would be looking for Bob (fictional) Jones and may not even notice Mr. Robert F. Jones, B.S., K.F., W.C.  (Mister Bob Jones, Bad Sort, Known Felon, Wanted Criminal).

You may think to yourself, “Self, he’s making this all up!”  But, NO!  I am not.  You yourself, should you voluntarily leave your home because of the misdirected anger of a loving spouse, could find all these interesting acronyms (well, most of them) in one book.  Actually three volumes of one book called the Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary (1994 ed.).  These ledgers of letterdom are chock full of interesting facts.  Did you know, for example, that there are 137 listings for the acronym A.C.E.?  They cover a wide range of topics from the American College of Ecology and the Association of Clandestine radio Enthusiasts to the Engineering Library, City of Calgary, Alberta (apparently the Canadians haven’t quite caught on to the fact that the words are supposed to be in order).

I believe there will eventually have to be laws as to how many of these titles can be tacked on to a name.  As it now stands, a persons’ business card could be completely filled with letters and it would require several appendices to decipher the code.  For instance, if this same Bob (fictional) Jones were an ordained minister and a surgeon who was a member of the state house of representatives, he could be referred to by many prefix titles.  Should he also be a manager of biomedical communications, an environmental activist, a resident at a specific hospital, a contributing editor of an international magazine, a talk-show host on an Amarillo, Texas radio station and a one-time child actor who once played Andy Griffiths’ son on television, he would be REALLY busy.  He could also truthfully be referred to as; the Honorable Reverend Doctor Robert F. Jones, A.B.C.D., E.F., G.H., I.J., K.L.M.N., O.P.[2].  Now, where’s the name in there?

So I think when people write a letter, they should address it without a title of any type…or I may be forced to do something like this again.  That is, if they let me back into the library after reading this.

[1] Certain paraphrasing has been done to keep this essay family oriented.

[2]Association of Biomedical Communications Directors, Earth First, General Hospital, International Journal, KLMN-FM radio, Amarillo, Texas, Opie Taylor