Forms of address

C o u n t r y S t u d y

Mr., Mrs., Ms, Miss.... What am I?

"Mr." is for a man. It used to be for an adult male and "Master" was used for children, but it isn't used much any more.

"Mrs." is an abbreviation for Misses and is used to denote a married woman.

“Miss” is not an abbreviation and, therefore, should never have a period after it. It is used to denote an unmarried woman.

"Ms" is also not an abbreviation and is used to denote a woman, married or unmarried. During the Women's Liberation movement of the early 1970s, it was thought that it was biased to give a title representing a woman's marital status whereas men have a title that does not reveal this information.

All these titles are used with the last name or with the full name (usually in formal written speech), but never with the first name of a person.

Other forms of address include:

Sir / Madam [sɜː] / ['mædəm]	are used to politely address a person whose name you don’t know
Officer	is used to address a policeman
Doctor	is used to address a doctor
Professor (with or without a surname)	to address a university lecturer
Dr. Brown	to address a scientist who has a PhD

Sometimes instead of addressing a person by name, the British prefer to say “Excuse me (please)?” (Извините). This phrase is also used to attract attention of a stranger.

Also to attract someone’s attention it is possible to say:

Pardon me….	Простите…
I say ….	Послушайте…
Look here…	Послушайте…(Минутку!)

To reply to any address you can simply say “Yes?” (Да? Я слушаю)

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1B Personal details, please!

Дата добавления: 2014-12-27