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:
“Women born at the turn of the century have been conditioned not to speak openly of their wedding nights. Of other nights in bed with other men they speak not at all. Today a woman having bedded with a great general feels free to tell us that in bed the general could not present arms. Women of my generation would have spared the great general the revelation of this failure.”
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“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
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“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
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“Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?
Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)