“PG, Well, if I was an internationally known lawyer I would find it suspect that I was not asked to teach for a school until I happened to marry a celebrity.”
What a supreme waste of Columbia’s time it would be, to go after lawyers in other parts of the world and invite them to the US for a semester, in complete ignorance of the fact that these people have commitments and lives based elsewhere. It doesn’t make any sense unless / until she’s going to be in the US for a significant period of time.
Hillary Clinton is an accomplished lawyer who lives in NY. Are you upset that Stanford Law doesn’t invite her to teach for a semester?
How do we know she hasn’t taught at law schools before she married George? It wouldn’t have made the national press, and we wouldn’t have noticed or cared.
I kept my name when I got married. It doesn’t bother me too much when we get mail addressed to Mr and Mrs HusbandFirstName HusbandLastName, especially when it is a relative from an older generation. But Dr. and Mrs. HFN HLN is a bit annoying–my PhD is just as good as his.
I was about to get mad at PG, because I don’t want to get letters addressed either to Mr. and Mrs. Him Husband, or to Mr. Him Husband/Ms. Cardinal Husband; I kept my last name, Fang, and Husband is no part of my name. But then I realized PG probably meant that if Jane kept her name, it would be fine to address the letter to Mr. John Smith on one line, and Ms. Jane Smith on one line.
I refer to women as Mrs. Hisfirst Hislast sometimes, more or less in jest, but I also refer to guys as Mr. Herfirst Herlast in such occasions. I’d talk about Mr. Reese Witherspoon, or Mr. Michele Bachman, or Mr. Dianne Feinstein, for example, if I was chatting with friends and that person came up.
CF, I think PG meant that you should do that even if Jane goes by Jane Smith… because “Mrs. Jane Smith” is apparently incorrect (though, again, I have yet to see where it says that.)
Rom, it’s an old etiquette rule that when Emily Brown marries John Smith, she becomes Mrs. John Smith (NOT Mrs. Emily Smith, which would be incorrect under this old rule) and should she divorce she would half-revert to Mrs. Emily Smith. It should be obvious why this has gone out of fashion.
Right I get that it’s an old rule but I don’t see anywhere that says it still exists. It seems that Mrs. Jane is perfectly correct nowadays according to the etiquette sites I looked at.
And what I’m saying is that the advent of Ms renders the whole thing irrelevant.
We needn’t argue whether Amal is Mrs George Clooney (seen by many as old fashioned/sexist) or Mrs Amal Clooney (technically incorrect) because she can be Ms Amal Clooney.
And the Ms also makes it easy because if she had retained her maiden name, they would be Mr George Clooney and Ms Amal Alamuddin.
I say that Mrs. Amal Clooney is no longer technically incorrect, and if I were in the position to invite her to a wedding I’d inquire how she preferred to be styled. Some women do not like the title Ms.
As for me, I prefer to to be styled “Your Eminence.” ;)) ;))
I do address an envelope to my 95 yo grandmother as Mrs. Jane Smith, even though technically she’s still Mrs. John Smith (as she’s a widow), but I kind of feel that at this point in time, I needn’t remind her that her husband died. So I break my own rule! My 72 yo mother, otoh, gets Ms. Susan Jones (she went back to her maiden name).
I really wouldn’t think twice if I received a formal invitation to Mr. and Mrs. PGHusbandfirstname PGLastname. I know who I am at this point!
I think it’s the old “prescriptivist” vs. “descriptivist” debate in a slightly different form. I don’t know if there are actually a lot of people who would even realize that “Mrs. Amal” is wrong.
For my part, I used to think that “Ms.” was for all adult women (which you could use to be ‘safe’ if you didn’t know if a woman was married or not) and that “Mrs.” was specifically for married women; I didn’t even realize there were any rules about the next word after the “Mrs.”. I think a lot of people are in that same boat and probably wouldn’t notice the error.
I assumed that referring to a woman as Mrs. (spouse’s name) was an outdated practice… I don’t see why it’s the “right” thing to do, but I’m not the best person to comment on conventions like this.
Her name aside, it’s great that Ms. Amal Clooney will be teaching. I would love to be in that class.
For all of you so concerned about how awfully patriarchal and sexist it is to say Mrs George
Clooney, I don’t know why you so badly keep wanting to use Mrs Amal Clooney. The Mrs reveals the marital status; isn’t that kind of sexist in its own way? Mr doesn’t reveal marital status of the man. Ms is the neutral and equal equivalent.