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Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Word Origins 59. Today we're going to cover
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the word origins of Miss, MRS. , MS. , and MR. Maybe we should take a note and look at
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the pronunciation because I know a lot of students of ESL sometimes have
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difficulty, especially with female titles and more specifically with this MS what
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we should pronounce it like MS M-I-Z almost like we're spelt like that. A lot
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of students sometimes see that MS. , so they still say miss or MRS. . They get
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confused with that. So this one's easy. This is miss is pronounced just like
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what it looks, looks like. You know, that's a regular word too, like something is
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missing. So it's pronounced the same way. miss. And the MRS is almost pronounced like
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it's the plural of the word miss. It's actually pronounced as MRS. Okay. And
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then this one is MS. and MR. usually is there's no problem. Everybody knows that
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one. Okay. Let's get back to... let's get back to the note here. The words miss and
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MRS. were originally formed as a short form of mistress. So originally they were
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kind of equal. It didn't really have anything to do with whether you were
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married or not married. At least going back to like fifteen, sixteen hundred's.
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They were just short forms of mistress. All right. Miss or I guess Mrs. as well
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dating back to its use during the 1500s and sixteen hundred's had two meanings.
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A female employer of a domestic staff which probably ended up being the wife
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in most cases. You know the head woman of the house was probably the one who hired
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you know , maids and butlers and stuff like this , especially in rich families.
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All right. So that's, that's how it got that meaning. Now the other meaning is
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the meaning that we use today for mistress. So it could have also meant an
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unmarried woman having an affair with a married man. So that's the meaning that
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we mostly use today for mistress. That's why it might sound funny today to
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realize that Miss and MRS. actually came from mistress. Okay.
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Over time MRS. started to be used for older women and miss for younger and
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then eventually miss was just thought of as being an unmarried woman and MRS.
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was more for the married woman. So over time that kind of formed. Okay.
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Let's continue. MR. was originally used as an abbreviation for master Yeah.
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There's probably a lot of feminist today that might not be happy about this.
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They might not think this is exactly PC anymore. They may not want to know. They
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might get angry to find out the origin, but you do, I do remember the old story
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like the play and the story "Les Miserables" Remember they made it to a play and I
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remember they had a song and they and in that song there was a line " Master of the
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house" (da ,da, da, da) so master of the house really just and the man. The man of
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the house. They did use the term master originally. So MR. ended up being
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short for master. Okay. Okay. Let's continue. Now the M-S. , the MS, even though some
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people said it originated earlier it didn't really get to be used a lot until
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the feminist movement in the 1960's. So MS. came to be used in full force during the
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feminist movement because miss traditionally identified a woman as
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being unmarried and MRS. identified her as married. Okay. Feminists combined
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the two because they thought it was unfair that MR. concealed both age
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and marital status. So they though this was a disadvantage and so they created a
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third one. So that's why today we have three titles for women but only one
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title for a man. Okay. Status right titles for women do not ... by using MS. it
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was considered equal to a man's MR. title. The factor of marriage is removed
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because if somebody said if a woman uses MS.
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You can't be a hundred percent sure whether she's married or unmarried. Okay.
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Even though initially you know, when they first started doing this in the 60s, it
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was said to be used mostly by single feminists at that time. And today that's
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not as true as much. Today many married business women may use it to take
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marital status out of the equation. So just in case they felt uncomfortable
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with that. I don't know if it would make a difference or not but you know whether
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somebody might think you know does that make any difference with promotions
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probably not probably. Probably the company if knows you're married or not married. Or
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maybe it may make her feel awkward in other business situations that you know
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wherever she's meeting may may know that oh she's not married yet she's only a
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miss instead of a MRS. or maybe that she is married I don't know but either
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way it takes it out of the equation and you don't know. Just like MR. you
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don't know if he is married or not married. This way it was considered to be
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equal. Okay. Anyway, this is how it came about and that's why today women have
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again three titles and men have just one title. Anyway, I hope it was
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informative. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for your time. Bye-bye.