Well, if the elementary school kids are told what to call someone, it seems a bit odd that they can't follow simple instructions. Being able to figure it out for yourself is only marginally more complicated, but, again, the elementary kids wouldn't have to do that.
And, while looking up the definition of Ms to triple-check that there wasn't some obscur meaning I wasn't aware of, I saw that the period after the title is apparently an American convention. OP, if you're writing in the UK you may have an escape!
Well, I got thanked for using miss three times tonight, so I guess I'll continue to keep telling my staff to use it. Not that I have much choice since it's the owner's call anyway, but I respect everyone's opinions regarding it, and maybe I'll bring it up in premeal tomorrow so everyone can be aware that offense may be forthcoming, though we get far more umbrage for ma'am-ing women who don't like the term. Just trying to do my part to make the world a happier place, for whatever that is worth.
In school all of my male teachers got called Sir and all of my female teachers got called Miss; no surnames. We rarely ever used the proper honorific in their presence and no one ever seemed to be offended by it. The only time a teacher has ever corrected me on their title was once when I was picking up one of my sisters kids from school and I was like, "You must be Mrs. Jackson," and she just said, "It's Miss actually," then went about playing with her hair.
Not read the entire thread - but do people really call their teachers by title and surname in 2017? In Sweden we haven't done that for I don't know how long. I can tell for sure it hasn't happened (maybe in fancy private schools) since the early 90's at least, but I'm not even sure my parents had to do that. We call them by their first name and they call us by ours. This, of course, hasn't got anything to do with your story which I guess is set in the US or UK or such. I'm just always surprised when I hear about it. Uh, carry on!
I think calling female teachers "Miss" goes back to the days (as in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) when female teachers had to retire when they got married. In much the same way that surgeons clung to being referred to as "Mr." when they reached the position where their skills were more highly regarded than their "physician" "Dr." brothers.
It may be a cultural thing, but here calling someone older than you by their first name unless prompted to do so is still a pretty big faux pas, especially when that person has some sort of authority over you.
Excepting there having been some great shift in convention since around 2011, this is the standard in the UK. Using a teacher's first name is considered rude.
Interesting artical here if interested. https://newrepublic.com/article/119432/history-female-titles-mistress-miss-mrs-or-ms
Ms Mr Mrs Dr etc. don't need periods. ETA: Oh I see you answered that one already. Sorry, should've read the thread first.
I've seen it without a period in published books... I think in Sarah Waters' novels? Could it be a British convention? To me Ms Surname looks neater than with the period. Style books usually recommend the period with a honorific, though, so if you want to play it safe, use it. As a side note, I once had the honor and the privilege to deal with a customer who had been addressed incorrectly as "Ms." in an email. She called back and told us she was a Mrs and she was very much offended someone would dare assume otherwise.
An even side-ier note... I had it in my head that you lived in Scandinavia or something... is that right? If so, do you work in English, or does your native language have a Ms./Mrs./Miss convention as well?
Honorifics are never used with Finnish or Swedish speakers (the official languages here). That incident had nothing to do with the customer being Scandinavian. She may have been German, come to think of it. The correspondence happened in English.