Miss Lady Penelope,

You said:

"I do not like the usage of MS as it is unnecessary. Miss is a short term of Mistress ( much like Mr is of Master ) and denotes a woman of non-serf status. The introduction of the difference between miss and mrs is a French / Middle English affectation."

Some of us are talking about present day American English usage of the terms Miss/Mrs/Ms in business settings, where the usage of the term Ms is most certainly not "unnecessary" as you put it.

It is entirely necessary to take into account the preference and feelings of the person being addressed, if you wish to present yourself in a polite, professional manner. Always. But especially when one is beginning a new position with someone they want to make a good impression on from the outset. That is ALL that matters in terms of etiquette.

Where you come up with the idea that the term Ms is unnecessary is beyond me, as any style manual on business usage will show you to be completely in the wrong. And regardless of the origins of the terms, the point is, nowadays the practice of using Miss/Mrs as forms of address for women, is based upon the woman's marital status, and many professional women will bite your head off for addressing them in that way. Which is what Guest Helen said she wished to avoid in her own circumstance.

The medieval feudal meaning is a bit out of date, isn't it?

I'm going to be so bold as to suggest that some women posting in this thread, claiming that the form of address for professional women (ie Ms) is meaningless and unimportant, may actually be expressing a personal dislike for the usage among groups of women they perceive as being "anti-male" or "feminist" or some such.

I've worked in both the public and non-profit sector, including academia (including, but not limited to, primary, secondary, and higher ed) for 25 years. No professional person worth their salt would suggest you disregard the ways that a person wishes to be addressed and "just go for it" or "follow the herd" in this regard. That can be tantamount to professional suicide in some circumstances.

The point is, Miss Lady Penelope, Guest Helen asked because she is sensitive to the minefield this can be at the university level. She apparently does not wish to be "put right" for being stupidly insensitive, when she can just as easily get off on the right foot to begin with, and "do right" by the person she has concerns about addressing properly.

May I ask you, just what is wrong with asking a person early on in the working relationship, how it is they prefer to be addressed?

That is a common courtesy I expect in my workplace, and I hear people use that term often. I work in a research hospital, as business manager for a medical group of all male surgeons. We are attached to a large university, where I assure you, titles and the ways people are addressed matters a great deal to most the people I work with on anything less than the most routine basis. Almost without exception, they all expect to be addressed by their professional title (ie Dr. or Professor). The higher you go, the more pronounced the tendency to be intolerant of someone's addressing a person casually.

Its one thing to say it shouldn't matter, or it doesn't matter to you, but it is another thing to say it doesn't matter in business settings, and you shouldn't worry about it.