Answer: Abbreviated titles

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

When is it appropriate to abbreviate titles (Mr., Dr.) and when should they be written out in full?

First, please note that a title directly precedes the person's name. Other uses are merely descriptive nouns and should always be written out.

Incorrect: Somebody ran for a Dr.
Correct: Somebody ran for a doctor.
Correct: Somebody ran for Dr. Fraiser.

Incorrect: She had the kind of glare that said butt out, Mr.
Correct: She had the kind of glare that said butt out, mister.
Correct: She had the kind of glare that said butt out, Mr. Bregman.

Let's look at the rules for titles, with some more examples from Stargate SG-1. There are different rules for when to abbreviate the various categories of what we call titles:

• Social titles: Mr., Mrs., Ms., Dr.


• Civil and military titles: President, Senator, General, Colonel, etc.


• Honorifics, or titles with "the": the Honorable, the Reverend

The Chicago Manual of Style is a standard American style guide for formal writing, such as papers and books. According to Chicago, when a civil or military title comes before a full name, it is usually abbreviated. An honorific may be as well.

Jack quickly scanned Kinsey's invitation list:

Rev. Samuel Stevens
Sen. Harry Clarkson
Sen. Alan Graysmith
Rep. Martha Hanley
Hon. David Thornton

When only a last name is given, a civil or military title should be spelled out. When used with "the," "Honorable" and "Reverend" should always be spelled out.

All Jack knew of the Right Reverend Samuel Stevens was that he was popular in conservative circles. His inclusion in a list of Senator Kinsey's band of corrupt insiders was going to need looking into.

Chicago also says that the following social titles are always abbreviated: Mr., Mrs., Messrs., Ms., M., MM. Mme, Mlle, Dr.

Another source of rules on titles comes from formal invitation etiquette, which says that when addressing invitations, all titles other than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. should be spelled out.

General Hammond passed out oversized envelopes of thick white linen paper to each addressee. Colonel Jack O'Neill, Doctor Daniel Jackson, Captain Samantha Carter, Mr. Teal'c. When Doctor Jackson turned over his envelope and saw Catherine Langford and Ernest Littlefield's names on the reverse, General Hammond couldn't help but smile along with him.

What about the second "Doctor Jackson" in the example above? Chicago says that "Dr." is always abbreviated, and this second use was in the narrative, not the invitation address. So why did I spell it out here? In short, fiction writing, narrative and dialogue, does not always adhere to the rules for non-fiction. The main aim of the writer is to pull the reader into the story. Ideals to strive for include:

• Avoid making the reader trip over your writing. The more your writing meets the reader's expectations, the more easily the reader will get into your story and flow along with it.


• Write dialogue that allows the reader "hear" your characters speak. By spelling out as much as possible, you signal to the reader exactly what the character is saying.


• Write narrative appropriate to your point of view (POV). The tighter your narrative is to a particular character's POV, the closer your narrative style should be to dialogue.

In dialogue, if you spell out everything, you give your reader the characters' exact words.

Lieutenant Grogan led the British representative to the IOA into the conference room and introduced him to the base commander: "General George Hammond, sir."

Grogan is pronouncing "jen-er-al" George Hammond, not "jen" George Hammond, and the reader won't have to think twice about it with the title spelled out. This can also give you room to provide more "flavor" for your characters' speech.

"Leftenant Carl Grogan," Chapman mused to the general. "Good man. So far I'm impressed by your people."

An American reader might not remember to mentally read "Lt." with Chapman's British pronunciation. Spelling the title out phonetically (it's properly spelled lieutenant in American and British English despite pronunciation) reminds the reader of his accent.

However, keep in mind reader expectations.

General Hammond gestured to the chairs at the conference table. "I hope you had a good trip, Mister Chapman."

General Hammond gestured to the chairs at the conference table. "I hope you had a good trip, Mr. Chapman."

Because of convention, and the Chicago and invitation rules above, it is very rare to see "Mister" spelled out in written English. It's even more rare to see "Missus"—and "Ms." doesn't actually expand at all. Seeing "Mister Chapman" written out is likely to interrupt the reader's flow by being unusual, while "Mr. Chapman" is likely to be read and mentally translated to the sound "mis-ter" automatically. The reader expects the abbreviation.

When writing your story from a particular character's point of view, your narrative is meant to reflect that character's thoughts, which are somewhat like mental speech.

Jack was starting to realize how important Prof. David Jordan had been in Daniel's life.

Jack was starting to realize how important Professor David Jordan had been in Daniel's life.

Jack is not going to think of the man as "Prof." He would hear the man's full title in his mind, so the spelled out version in the narrative lets the reader more accurately "hear" Jack's thoughts.

If the POV of your story is more objective, or if you are quoting a section of written text—such as the invitation list, above, or a newspaper article—then you may want to revert to Chicago rules.

The title "Doctor" falls between Chicago and invitation rules. The abbreviation "Dr." is common enough—more common than "Capt." or "Prof."—that a reader will probably have no problem mentally translating it quickly. However the reader also is used to seeing the word "doctor" spelled out; it's not an unusual word that would trip up a reader. My personal preference is to spell it out in dialogue to maintain the sound of the character's speech. Whether I spell it out in the narrative depends upon the POV.

Spelling out all titles other than Mr., Mrs., or Ms. in dialogue and narrative is only a recommendation, but it has a logic that works for fiction writers. The only real rule is that once you've decided how you want to deal with titles, keep your style consistent throughout your story.

Comments

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit confused by this: Grogan is pronouncing "jen-er-al" George Hammond, not "jen" George Hammond, and the reader won't have to think twice about it with the title spelled out. and Jack is not going to think of the man as "Prof."

Do you mean it's common practice to not pronounce "Gen."/"Col."/"Capt."/"Prof." as "general"/"colonel"/"captain"/"professor"? I've never come across that before!

. . . it is very rare to see "Mister" spelled out in written English. It's even more rare to see "Missus"

The full spelling of Mrs. is - AFAIK - "Mistress". I've seen "missus" quite frequently in older books, always as a phonetic spelling of lower-class or regional accents.

(As an aside, in one of those little differences between dialects, in modern Hiberno-English, it's correct to use common abbreviations of titles without a full stop - I was impressed by the effort made by a non-Irish beta reader for me who carefully put all the "correct" full stops in).

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Apologies for not being clear! The point is exactly that one never says J-E-N for General, but that when a reader's eye sees "Gen." that's what the spelling tells them they should be hearing in their mind's ear. It takes an extra millisecond of interpretation to translate it, and it's not representative of the character's actual speech.

The origin of Mrs. four centuries ago was Mistress, but the use of Mistress for a married woman is so archaic that it now has nearly the opposite meaning--the woman a man is NOT married to. I can't imagine it would go over well to write that out on an envelope! I see "missus" fairly commonly as a non-title as seen at the very top: "How's the missus?" But yes, it is used as a signifier of dialect, much like Leftenant, even though the pronunciation of Mrs. is pretty standardly "missus" across all English speakers. Why "Yes, Missus Beecham" is more indicative of the serving class than "Yes, Mrs. Beecham" is beyond me. It may be an artifact of the 17th century when Mistress was still used.

Ah, the British versus American period issue! It's addressed somewhat in the Ms versus Ms. post: http://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/25743.html

I found it interesting that Chicago did not put a period after Mme or Mlle since those two abbreviated titles are only used by the French, who also don't use periods. Good luck with your beta!

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

I hear "Mrs" as "missis" (or "misses" perhaps - like the plural of miss) in both Irish and British (from hearing it said by a variety of English, Scottish, Welsh and one Manx person) accents - spelling it "Missus" seems to me to definitely denote an accent that neither the writer not reader is presumed to share. No one seems to actually say it, but it is spelled that way to denote a dialect or class-based difference. It's never used as the simple spelling out of "Mrs" (which I would imagine is not spelled out due to the shift in meaning of the underlyng word) - and if the modern pronunciation is used as an actual form of direct address, it's used in exactly the same way that "mistress" could have been used in the past, before the meaning shift - I'd be wary of using it in fic, though, due to the way it's used in published texts, where it mainly serves to mark out someone who doesn't speak as the writer feels is correct!

(I have to admit, I took out each and every carefully-added full stop!)

[green-grrl.livejournal.com]

Hah! I feel like I am in one of those regional accent memes. "Is there a difference between pen and pin? Is there a difference between don and dawn?" To my ears there is little to no difference between missis, misses, or missus. Maybe I can imagine a very, very precisely enunciated "missis"? If the distinction is strong in British English, that could easily explain where the classism comes from.

In the US, anybody at all could be written as saying, "How's the missus?" with the only caveat being that it's somewhat familiar and informal. No class distinction, though. However spelling out "Yes, Missus Beecham" does immediately connote a servant, probably Southern. That may be the British English heritage. Which really makes it worse in American as it could just as easily be written "Mrs." pronunciation-wise and only serves to pass judgment on the character. I hope that's falling to the wayside, there and here!