How to Use Titles Correctly

We’ve spoken about how to start an email before, but how do we address people correctly in our emails and letters? (We call these words ‘honorifics’, by the way.)

We use ‘Mr‘ to address men, ‘Mrs‘ for married women, and ‘Miss‘ for unmarried women. However, we now see more use of ‘Ms‘ (pronounced ‘miz’) for both married and unmarried women—so it says nothing about a person’s marital status. And we now use ‘Mx‘ (pronounced ‘mix’ or ‘mux’) as a gender-neutral alternative—for people who don’t want to be identified by their gender.

(By the way, in British English, there is no full stop after Mr, Mrs, Ms and Mx. In American English there is.)