General Usage of Some Common Titles
- Ms: (/ˈmɪz/ or /mɨz/) - for women, regardless of marital status.
- Miss: for use by unmarried women.
- Mrs: (/ˈmɪsɨz/ or /ˈmɪsɨs/) - for use by married women.
- Mr: Mister - for men.
- Master: - for boys or very young men. Rarely used except in very formal address.
- Sir: - for men, if they have an English knighthood, or as a term of general respect or flattery. Police for instance use it to calm someone down so they will obey more readily, e.g. "Sir, stay back."
- Madam or Madame: for women, a term of respect or flattery. Equivalent to "sir".
- Lord Highest respect for a male outside the "immediate" royal family. (Style: Lordship or My Lord)
- Lady Highest respect for a female outside the "immediate" royal family. (Style: Your Ladyship or My Lady)
- Bro.: Brother - for men in religious organizations; in the Catholic church, for monks.
- Dr: Doctor - a person who has obtained a doctorate, such as the Doctor of Medicine (M.D.), Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (D.O.), or Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). In the Commonwealth holders of a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS or MBChB) are entitled to call themselves 'Doctor'.
- Rev: Reverend - for Christian clergy
- Fr: Father - for priests in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, and some Anglican or Episcopalian groups
- Sr: Sister - Nun or other religious sister in the Catholic Church; for women generally in some religious organizations, such as the Mormons.
- Adv.or Counsellor : Advocate - Lawyers & Advocates. (Not used in the United States or United Kingdom.)
Read more about this topic: English Honorifics
Famous quotes containing the words general, usage, common and/or titles:
“One general builds his success on ten thousand bleaching bones.”
—Chinese proverb.
“Pythagoras, Locke, Socrates—but pages
Might be filled up, as vainly as before,
With the sad usage of all sorts of sages,
Who in his life-time, each was deemed a bore!
The loftiest minds outrun their tardy ages.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“All the courses of my life do show
I am not in the roll of common men.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us, or we are not happy; we have to have somebody to worship and envy, or we cannot be content. In America we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately we hanker after them, and when we get a chance we buy them for cash and a daughter.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)