Antedating of "Ms."

[Dennis Baron]

FYI -- I made an edited image of the 1901 Salt Lake City article on
Ms. and placed it on my Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1942132&ref=profile


____________________
Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
fax: 217-333-4321

http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron

read the Web of Language:
http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage








On Jun 22, 2009, at 12:16 PM, Dennis Baron wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dennis Baron <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Ms."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I found a jpg of that tombstone online -- I don't think ads-l lets
> me =20=
>
> attach images to messages, so here is the link:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/40083302@N00/2656841420
>
> I'm assuming it's an undoctored photo -- I haven't seen the
> tombstone =20=
>
> myself.
>
> Note that the stonecutter abbreviates by carving M with a
> superscript =20=
>
> S (hard to see -- I adjusted contrast in photoshop and enlarged a
> tiff =20=
>
> of the image to get some detail),  a common way to abbreviate (see =20
> similar practice on the stone with Yr for year).
>
> Fred Shapiro just sent me a pdf of the Salt Lake Daily Tribune page,
> =20
> and the article is straightforward in proposing Ms as an alternative
> =20
> to Miss or Mrs when one doesn't know the marital status of the
> person =20=
>
> address. The writer suggests pronouncing Ms. as "mizz" -- the voiced
> =20
> form being usefully ambiguous "in many bucolic regions" where Miss
> and =20=
>
> Mrs. are similarly pronounced (of course in non-"bucolic" usage Miss
> =20
> is voiceless, and that's the pronunciation I had found for Miss
> dating =20=
>
> from the 40s or 50s.. To use a technical linguistics term, this find
> =20
> is way, way cool.
>
> Alas, Springfield Mo. is quite a schlep from central illinois (well,
> =20
> everything is, pretty much) but I'm tempted to call the Springfield
> =20
> library and ask for an image of the Springfield Republican page, if
> =20
> they'll make one for me from their microfilm.
>
>
> Dennis
> ____________________
> Dennis Baron
> Professor of English and Linguistics
> Department of English
> University of Illinois
> 608 S. Wright St.
> Urbana, IL 61801
>
> office: 217-244-0568
> fax: 217-333-4321
>
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/debaron
>
> read the Web of Language:
> http://www.illinois.edu/goto/weboflanguage
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Jun 22, 2009, at 11:54 AM, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =20
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
>> Subject:      Re: Antedating of "Ms."
>> =
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> -----
>>
>> Quoting Randy Alexander:
>>
>>> On Tue, Jun 23, 2009 at 12:26 AM, Ann Burlingham wrote:
>>>>> The OED's first use for the form of address "Ms." is from a Dec.
>>>>> =20=
>
>>>>> 4, 1901
>>> Iowa newspaper. =C2 The Iowa article is referring to prior usage
>>> in =
> the
>>> Springfield (Mass.) Republican. =C2 I have not yet traced the =
> original
>>> Springfield article, but I have found an earlier other newspaper =20
>>> reprinting
>>> the Springfield article. =C2 In the Newspaperarchive database, the
>>> =20=
>
>>> Salt Lake
>>> Tribune, Nov. 17, 1901, p. 21, reprints the Springfield article, =20
>>> including
>>> the use of the term "Ms."
>>>>
>>>> I'm surprised by this, though maybe I'm missing a nuance here,
>>>> but I
>>>> know I read Miss Manners, in her discussion of "Ms." referring to
>>>> at
>>>> least a century's-older usage.
>>>
>>> http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2000/07/27/ms/index.html
>>>
>>> "They might be surprised to learn that modern feminists did not come
>>> up with Ms. in the first place. The title's earliest documented
>>> appearance was on the 1767 tombstone of a Massachusetts woman named
>>> Sarah Spooner. "
>>>
>>> A few other pages mention this (google: "sarah spooner" 1767 ms).
>>> Some suggest it to be an isolated case, with no connection (through
>>> continuity in use) with the 20th century.
>>
>> See also Dennis Baron's _Grammar and Gender_ (p. 167):
>>
>> "The title _Ms_ appears on the tombstone of Sarah Spooner, who died
>> =20=
>
>> in 1767 in
>> Plymouth, Massachusetts, but it is certainly an abbreviation of =20
>> _Miss_ or
>> _Mistress_, and not an example of colonial langurage reform or a =20
>> slip of the
>> chisel, as some have suggested."
>>
>>
>> --Ben Zimmer
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org