Use of Miss, Mrs., Ms. and Dr.
Titles and their usage often vary from one culture to another. In French, for example, Mademoiselle and Madame relate more to age than marital status; whereas in English, Miss denotes an unmarried woman and Mrs. a married woman or a widow. The generally preferred usage today is Ms., which refers to female gender and not to marital status.
“Dr.” denotes a medical doctor in many languages. In English-speaking countries, it’s also used for persons holding a doctorate, particularly within the academic world. In Italy, however, anyone with a bachelor’s degree (or looks as if they might have one) can be addressed as “Dottore”. United Nations policy is to use the title “Dr.” only for doctors of medicine acting in a medical capacity.
In lists of participants
The preferred style in United Nations documents is to omit the titles, except perhaps for doctors acting in a medical capacity.
Either put titles for all participants at a meeting, or for no one. And be consistent in how you address people in the minutes.
Names whose gender is not obvious
What if you don’t know the gender of the person you are writing to? It could be because it is in a language or a culture you are not familiar with—such as Seaghan Mac, Sionnaigh or Morgan Thomas? Or perhaps the name could be male or female—such as Mika, Chris, Robin, Sam or Dominique?
In this case, standard practice is to put the full name without a title.
In summary, in United Nations correspondence, when using a title, use Mr. for a male and Ms. for a female, and the full name with no title when for whatever reason the gender of the person is unknown:
Dear Mr. Smith,
Dear Ms. Gonzalez,
Dear Saoirse Kelly,
Dear Dominique Dupont,
And, by the way, you don’t include your own title when you sign off. But if your name is Mika, for instance, you could helpfully add (Mr.) or (Ms.) after your surname.
For guidance on formal correspondence in particular, you may wish to consult the United Nations Correspondence Manual (last issued in 2000): https://archive.unu.edu/hq/library/resource/UN-correspondence-manual.pdf
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Author: Carol Waites
Presentation/editing by Christina O’Shaughnessy
https://worldwidewriting.org/
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Carol Waites (PhD)
Email: carolswritingtips@gmail.com
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