Why is the abrreviation of "missus" Mrs?

Question

Missus is not pronounced with an r.

Answer 1

The abbreviation for missus is either Miss or Ms.

Answer 2

From Maryanne:

What is the origin of the abbreviation Mrs.?

It is simply an abbreviation of the word mistress, which used to be pronounced "mistress" and was a title of courtesy. The contracted form of the word, pronounced "missus", became attached to the abbreviation, and using mistress (pronounced "mistress") as a title of courtesy fell out of disuse. It was most certainly by 1828 that the "missus" title was the only pronunciation of the word mistress and of its abbreviation Mrs. We find this quotation in that year, referring to mistress: "to pronounce the word as it is written would, in these cases, appear quaint and pedantick." Eventually the spelling mistress for "missus" fell out of disuse, and only Mrs. was left with that pronunciation, and it was only used as a title, preceding a name, as is still the case today.

Since we've mentioned mistress no longer being used in the above sense, we should explain how it came to mean "a woman who illicitly occupies the place of wife". It began as a snide metaphorical reference in the 15th century and simply stuck.

Mr. is simply the abbreviation of master, used as a title, like Mrs. The "mister" pronunciation arose simply as an alteration of master. Rather like its female counterparts, the "mister" pronunciation stuck with Mr., while master retained its "master" pronunciation, and the two were considered distinct words, this by the 18th century. Interestingly, the plural abbreviation is Messrs., taken from Messiurs as there was no extant plural form from the English word.

The ultimate origin of the above feminine forms is Old French maistresse, which is basically formed from the Old French equivalent of master (maistre or maître) + the feminine ending -ess. Master, maître and maistre all derive from Latin magister, magistrum, which come ultimately from magus "great". The master and mistress were originally the "great" man and woman of the household, estate, etc.

From: http://takeourword.com/TOW147/page2.html

Answer 3

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
Mrs

\Mrs.\ The customary abbreviation of Mistress when used as a title of courtesy, in writing and printing.

Mrs" originated as a contraction of the honorific "Mistress", the feminine of "Mister" or "Master", which was originally applied to both married and unmarried women. The split into "Mrs" for married women and "Miss" for unmarried women began during the 17th Century and was well-established by the time it further split to include Ms. In the time since the origination of Mrs, is has become rare for it to be written out and it lacks a standard phonetic spelling. In literature, it usually appears as "missus" or "missis" in dialogue, though one variant, in the works of Thomas Hardy and others, is "Mis'ess", reflecting its etymology.

Answer 4

Because the actual word being abbreviated is "mistress". Nowadays, "mistress" has a very different, almost antithetical meaning.

Answer 5

i'd almost bet that maybe because back when that started men were "superior" to woman and a woman would be considered a plural of a man, so Mister (Mr.) is man and his Mistress or Misses is (Mrs) the plural to him.

actually i dont know, it just sounded right! lol