The New Orleans daily Democrat. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1877-1880, 1879-10-09
Mr.. MRS. and Miss.
RI. q. White In New York Timess)

r. q. White In New York TimesJ
an asked when 1t became the custom to
call married women "MisslZ." instead oil
I'M Istress." believe that 1t would be diff
cult to fix upon q time when this deplorable
change In pronunciation took place, and In
deed, am very sure that the clipped and de-
graded form Of mistress made its way slowly
among the folk who wore born to speak Eng
lish, and did not prevail until some genera
tlOns had passed away after 1t came into a
certain vogue In fact, mistress Is not yet
absolutely driven from the field, for there are
people, both In England and America, who
discaim missi2, and cling to the old, full
sounding, dgnilied mistress. But although
the question propounded to mo cannot be ex-
actly answered, 1t gives us good occasion to
glance at the history OF our most commonly
us"d titles OF respect,
Mister Il, like missis, a degraded form OF q
better word, master, and master Itself Is the
product Of a gradual decay OF the Latin
magister, both words having the same mean
Ing. Muster, however, liz not directly derived
from mngister. The Latin word, In the course
Of those centuries which we call the Dark
Ages, dropped the and became mnistcr, or
matstre Ia old French. In this form 1t passed
Into old English, In which 1t is found always,
or almost always, written either with al OF
az, and there is no room for doubt that the
pronunciation OF the word was the same both
In England and In France.
Our wretched little Mtssas has the same no
BILE descent as Mister The feminine form OF
maister is maisteress, and the latter word
naturally soon followed the former Into use.
At first 1t had a like application and was
given to women who were really maisteresses.
But 1t lost this elevation much sooner than Its
masculine counterpart did. The desire to
please the vanity Of women, sometimes called
chivalric, sometimes gallant, which has done
much greater harm, did some harm In leading
quickly to the application of This title to all
ladies-that Is, all gentlewomen, who had no
other. Sooner than maister, too, 1t lost its q
both In pronunciation and In spelling. MIS-
tress Is much older English sound than
Mister.
Mistress was given as title OF honor to
young girls as well as to matrons early In the
sixteenth century, If not before that time OIL
its use In this manner In the time of Eliza
beth, Shakespeare's Mistress" Anne Page
| in the Windsor comedy, ls an example. Anne
Page was mere slip OF a girl, but being the
daughter ,of. gentleman. she was "Mis,
tressed:" This use Of Mistress prevailed until
about the reign Of Queen Anne. Until the end
OF the seventeenth century unmarried ladies
were called Mistress Mistress Mary, Mis-
tresS Betty, and so forth. AS their mothers
were also called Mistress, the fashion makes
some confusion for the modern reader of old
time literature, particularly in the old Eng
lish comedies. In the drGmatis persona Of
these there will be half dozen ladies', all
styled Mrs, of whom some will be married
women, and others young, unmarried girls.
1t is not always easy to discover the exact po-
siti0n OF these ladies, even by their manners,
particularly when the Mrs. Is widow.
Mss, as title OF respect, Is the most