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Short form of Messrs. (plural of Mr.)?

10 replies
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Hello there,
Does M/s stands for the shortform of Messrs (plural of Mr.)? Kindly advise.
New Member06
:
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Not to my knowledge. Please provide context.
.
Veteran Member76,952
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curiouscutebuoyHello there,
Does M/s stands for the shortform of Messrs (plural of Mr.)? Kindly advise.

When addressing envelopes, I use Ms for a single or married lady, Mr. for a single man, Mmes for two ladies (using last names) and Mssrs for two men (using last names). It is difficult to assign rules for spelling (and punctuating) terms that are borrowed from a foreign language; I think the best "rule" is to be consistent.
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:
HI,
When I address an envelope to a person, I usually don't put any title at all. I find that if I know their last name, I usually know their first name.

I find that I rarely have to address an envelope to more than one person.

Clive
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:
CliveHI,
When I address an envelope to a person, I usually don't put any title at all.

I find that to be more and more common.
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:
for e.g. I need to address one single e-mail to 2 people, say Philip and Clive. Will it be wrong if I address them by M/s Philip & Clive instead of Messrs. Philip & Clive.
:
Hi,
for e.g. I need to address one single e-mail to 2 people, say Philip and Clive. Will it be wrong if I address them by M/s Philip & Clive instead of Messrs. Philip & Clive.

We were talking about addressing an envelope. Now we are talking about an email, where you don't write an address in the same sense.

What you can write is a greeting.

Let's assume the names are Clive Smith and Philip Jones.

Don't write either M/s or Messrs. If you want to be formal, write Dear Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones.

If you know us and want to be informal, write Dear Clive and Philip.

If youu want to be very informal, don't write any greeting at all, except maybe 'Hi'.

Clive
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Anonymous:
My understanding (as a student of linguistic history) is no it doesn't. M/s is a modern addition to (usually) forms etc to be filled in. It actually is used when you do not know the gender of the person so giving you 'Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms' in three short characters. I wouldn't use it on any formal document or letter though.

BTW, Messrs IS the short form because it actually refers to the original French title (where we get Mr and Mrs from in English) of Messieurs (as in Messieurs et Madames) so I don't think it can be shortened further.

Hope that helps!
Anonymous:
OMG, thank you for that educated and succinct answer. I am so glad that there are some out there that have the discernment to interpret actually what is needed and have the ability to explain it to others. Thank you, it helped better than all the other replies.
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