Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 June 8

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June 8

Address

When I write a letter in Germany, in my address of sender I usually write just “Helene Thorn”, nothing like “Frau Helene Thorn” (“Mrs. Helene Thorn”). And I can be sure that in the answer I will be addressed as “Frau Helene Thorn”. As “Helene” is a female given name, and it’s decades ago that unmarried women in Germany were addressed as “Fräulein” (“Miss”).

So I was very much surprised when I received a letter from the UK in which I was addressed as “Miss”. I don’t think that the sender wanted to be rude, and I don’t think that he is lacking knowledge of the rules of politeness. But I imagine it is not impossible that he is a bit old-fashioned. What do you think?

What should I write in my address of sender when I write again to somebody in an English-speaking country? “Mrs. Helene Thorn”? Or “Frau Helene Thorn”? Would recipients understand that “Frau” is not a given name, but the German equivalent of “Mrs.”? -- Helene T. (talk) 07:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

When you say "address of sender" I guess you mean your own address, which you write on the back or the top left of the envelope in case the letter is not delivered. The first thing to say is that British people do not usually do this. It seems a lot more prevalent in continental Europe and the USA than in the UK, for some reason. Anyway, to answer your question, I think you are doing the right thing normally when you don't put any title at all. If you want to put a title, and you are married (as I think you are), then I would have thought "Mrs" would be the best bet if you don't mind stating your marital status. Some women understandably find it annoying that saying "Mrs" automatically gives away their marital status whereas "Mr" for a man doesn't. If that is an issue for you then "Ms" would be a good alternative. --Viennese Waltz 07:37, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree it's more than a bit old-fashioned to label someone with "Miss", particularly when one does not know she is in fact a Miss. These days, it's perfectly acceptable to reply to someone who identifies themself only as "Helene Thorn", with "Dear Helene Thorn" or simply "Dear Helene". I would not let this one episode cause you to change your practice. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Except that it's wrong to put both the recipient's first name and surname after "Dear". It's "Dear [first name]" or "Dear [title] [surname]". --Viennese Waltz 09:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

No, I disagree. It's really the only solution when you don't know what honorific to use, and you're not on a first-name basis. --Trovatore (talk) 09:17, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I was always taught it was wrong and it certainly looks wrong to me. The problem of not knowing what honorific to use only arises when writing to a woman. In that case, use "Ms". --Viennese Waltz 09:27, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Ms or Mr could be wrong if the recipient holds a PhD or even an MD, being tolerant, even though of course they're not real doctors. And in any case you may not know the recipient's sex. With "Helene" it's a pretty safe bet, but what do you do if it's "Pat" or "Sandy"? --Trovatore (talk) 09:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Any PhD holder who prefers to be called "Dr" is beneath contempt </irony>. For Pat and Sandy, I'd put "Dear Pat/Sandy". It's not my fault that they have an ambiguous name, and they should be able to cope with a bit of informality. --Viennese Waltz 09:50, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I believe Germany (maybe Austria too?) has some ridiculous and reprehensible law that names must identify the sex, but in freer countries it is quite normal for them not to. Andrea, Rusty, Nicola, Kimberly, Beverly, Madison. Even names that appear sex-specific are not safe; I have an aunt named Clifford, and I know more than one female Mikey. You cannot presume to use first-name address just because you can't figure out the person's sex. There is only one correct solution in this situation, and it is "dear Andrea Pacciani". Anything you have been taught to the contrary is just simply wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 16:31, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Don't think that Andrea and Nicola are similar to the others -- they're masculine in Italian(?), but as given to babies born in English-speaking countries, they would be strongly feminine... AnonMoos (talk) 23:24, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I think that was Trovatore's point. You can assume all you like, including that a particular person called Andrea must be a female from your own country, but maybe she's a he, and he's from Italy. All the other examples Trovatore gave could apply to males and females. A person's name alone is not a reliable source for determining their sex. The good old days are gone. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 00:02, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

It's probably old-fashioned chivalry. The default assumption being that if you don't put (Mrs) after your name then you are young and unmarried, so it would be more polite to address you as "Miss" than to assume that you are (older and) married. I'm not necessarily supporting the assumption, just trying to explain it. You could avoid confusion by putting Helene Thorn (Mrs) on your sender's address, or as your signature. Dbfirs 08:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Unlike German, English still has the seperation of Mrs. and Miss. It is tricky to guess whether a person is married or not, and it is difficult to know whether using the wrong one will be seen as rude: As others have said, this could be done by simply avoiding using the title. However, I don't think the person was trying to be rude, and if anything, it's just a cultural faux pas. As Dbfirs writes above: just specify what title you wish the sender to use. V85 (talk) 09:48, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for so many interesting answers. I think I’ll follow the advice to write “Helene Thorn (Mrs.)”.

As for “Ms.”: Aren’t there some people who dislike that?

As for “Dr.”: In Germany it’s just normal politeness to use it when addressing a person who holds a Dr. For example, “Sehr geehrte Frau Dr. Schmidt” (“Liebe Frau Dr. Schmidt” can also be all right, but I wouldn’t advise that for somebody’s first letter to Frau Dr. Schmidt).

As for “PhD”: Shouldn’t it be written after the surname? For example “Mrs. Smith PhD”?

Thank you -- Helene T. (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Some people dislike Ms, but many women still choose to use it if they don't want their title to identify their marital status. Another common situation when Ms is used is when a woman hasn't changed her surname when marrying. If she were to use Mrs, then people may call her husband by the same surname as her. So if you do want to use Ms, feel free to put Helen Thorn (Ms). Ah, but what if you have a PhD? Then "Dr" supersedes Mrs or Ms. They are not used together. Then your choices are either Dr. Helene Thorn or Helen Thorn, PhD. The second one sounds more American than British. A few people with PhDs choose not to use the title at all, sticking with Mr, Miss, Mrs or Ms. (Note that British professors who also hold a doctorate are not Professor Doctor like in Germany, but only Professor.) Whatever you choose, expect people to get it wrong. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:34, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I'm out of touch, but I'd have thought "Miss" was virtually obsolete now. It belongs to the days when letters to a young boy were addressed to "Master William Smith". Or when two young women were introduced: "Miss Brown, I'd like you to meet Miss Jones", and if they worked together they would call each other that, until such time as they got better acquainted and became friends - if that ever happened. They might not even know each other's given names at all for quite some time. That level of unnecessary formality has all gone by the board now - hasn't it? Or is Australia leading the way (as usual)?  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 22:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

"Miss" is in a long slow decline, but I really don't think it's on a level with "Master" -- in the United States, "Master" went out of common use around WW1, while "Miss" was going strong until at least the 1970s. And in vocative use (not prefixed to a name), retail workers have traditionally addressed all young women as "Miss" and all fully-adult women as "Ma'am", so receiving your first "Ma'am" has been a kind of a rite of passage... AnonMoos (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

This may not be apropos, but "Miss" + a woman's (married or not) first name is a form of respectful address in certain dialects of American English. For example, in my church we would always refer to older women named Sue as "Miss Sue", or Kay as "Miss Kay". It may be ""obsolete" or "on the decline" in some dialects, but it is also still quite common in others.--William Thweatt ^Talk | ^Contribs 00:19, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Would Sue or Kay still be called "Miss" if they were married, or is it reserved for spinsters? -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 01:36, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Here in North Carolina "Miss Firstname" is a standard form of address for all women, married or single. --Jayron32 03:07, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Nice to see there are still some pockets of courtesy in the world. Despite what I said before about "Miss" being obsolete generally, I'd much rather it be used in the North Carolinan way than hear girls calling out to each other with such choice appellations as "Hey, slagface". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 09:14, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, all of you. -- Helene T. (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

As for the word 'Frau': I think most English-speaking people with some exposure to the outside world, would know that it is the German word for 'Mrs.', and interpret it as such. (After all, you are a sending your letter from Germany.)

I have experienced that the German lack of a Miss/Mrs. distinction goes the other way: A female friend of mine (26 years old) ordered a ticket with Lufthansa (using the English online ordering form) and filled it in using 'Miss' (as she was an unmarried femal), however, Lufthansa issued its ticket to a 'Mrs.', something which she did not appreciate. So it's not a given that the German style of address for females fits everybody. ;-) V85 (talk) 03:35, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Funny anecdote. I was born in NY but lived in the south til four and a half, long enough to pick up Spanish and a Southern accent. We moved back north when it was time for me to start nursery school. My next door neighbours were the Zwergs. Sent alone to borrow a cup of sugar from Mrs. Zwerg-, who had immigrated to the US from Germany at 18 years of age, just after the War, I said "Miss Zwerg, can I barrah some sugah?" She berated me for two minutes on how she was married and she deserved to be called Mrs. I don't think I cried, but the only other sort of things I do remember from that age were getting stung by fire ants, jumping in a ditch with a rattler, the hurricane that put out our lights, the tornado we could see in the field across our back yard, and getting the chicken pox. μηδείς (talk) 04:32, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

As a point of (perhaps) OR, when I was married, I expressed my desire to not take my husband's last name. He agreed to this under the condition that I use 'Mrs.' and not 'Ms.' While this does result in him occasionally being addressed by my surname, he's perfectly okay with that. It is rather unorthodox, but not outside the realm of possibility and I've never had trouble with it on any official forms or the like. Most forms I've had to fill out have a space (or a drop-down box) allowing me to specify which title I'd like used.

However, my Father-In-Law is from the same school as the others mentioned above (although he is not from the Southern US), calling both myself and his (married) daughter 'Miss Firstname'. He did refer to both of us this way before we were married and hasn't changed a bit since. It's a form a respectful affection in this case.Helene O'Troy - Et In Arcadia Ego Sum (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Since we've had two Helenes in this thread, let me add a third. My ex-wife's name is Helene, and she's had 5 names in her life. First it was her birth name Helen A (not yet Helene, that came later). Then she got married to husband No. 1 and became Helen B. Then they divorced and she married me, becoming Helen C. She's a traditionalist who despised being called "Ms" after marriage, and she would sign business letters "Helen C (Mrs)", so that there was no possible doubt (but she regularly had a brain-snap when replies came back addressed to Ms Helen C, as most of them predictably did, because businesses have typically invested millions in hi-tech systems in order to become totally rigid and inflexible, and to have less capacity to respond to these sorts of things than they had back in the pre-techno days). I told her that signing this way made her sound like one of the retired ladies from the local charity cake stall, not a world-beating young thing in her early 30s, and impressions and perceptions matter rather a lot if you're applying for a job, for example - but she would have none of it, and Mrs it remained. Oh, the Helene connection. During our marriage she decided she didn't like Helen, and changed it to Helene, so Helen C became Helene C, her 4th name. Then after we divorced she reverted to her maiden surname but keeping the Helene, Helene A, her 5th name. I know she won't mind me mentioning all this here. She certainly won't be reading it. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:40, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Circa

When you use the word "circa" – or its abbreviated form ("c.") – should you italicize it or not? I thought that foreign words are (generally) italicized. As far as "circa", the Wikipedia entry (circa) seems to imply that it is not italicized. The Wiktionary entry (wikt:circa) seems to imply that it is. Thanks! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:10, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It really depends on how foreign you consider it to be. Few people nowadays would italicize etc., for instance. The Chicago Manual of Style states that "commonly used Latin words and abbreviations should not be italicized", and the examples they give are ibid., et al., ca. (a variant of c.), and passim. Lesgles (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. But, you got me confused. Those are some examples of what the Chicago Manual of Style states should – or should not – be italicized? Thanks! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:52, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on which manual of style you are using. Is this for a wikipedia article or something else? 50.98.176.48 (talk) 18:47, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

My reading of Leslgles's answer is that ca. (the abbreviation) should not be italicised according to the CMS.

Personally, I would go the other way: Even though I appreciate the use of circa, I would say that it's a word that's falling out of use, with word such as around or approximately being used more frequently. And live 50.98 above me is saying: It depends on where you plan to write this. V85 (talk) 19:36, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. To both 50.98.176.48 and V85 ...my answer is "both". I would like to know how to use it in Wikipedia ... and, also, for other purposes (when I write for non-Wikipedia items). Thanks! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:42, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

And sorry about the confusion; V85's interpretation of my answer is correct. I was italicizing the examples because they were examples, not because they should be italicized. Quotation marks probably would have been better. :) Lesgles (talk) 20:25, 10 June 2012 (UTC)