Re: punctuated abbreviations // was english spelling reform

Andreas Johansson writes:
 > Nik Taylor wrote:
 > > > though I have seen "Ms."... I guess no vowel makes it look like an
 > > > abbreviation for something unwritable
 > >
 > >Well, as I understand it, Ms. is derived from Mrs.
 >
 > It is? And I thought it meant "Miss" ... ?
 >

It doesn't mean either.  The point behind "Ms" is that with only the
terms "Mrs" and "Miss", it's impossible to refer to a woman by means
of an honorific without specifying her marital status.  This was felt
to be discriminatory, and "Ms" (pronounced, in my experience, /mIz/ or
/mz/) was introduced as a direct counterpart of the male "Mr".  It was
coined in 1949, but didn't become popular until the '70s.

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