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Drafting pro tip: if you're not writing in French, don't write "Messrs"

Writer's picture: Daniel Meyerowitz-KatzDaniel Meyerowitz-Katz

Us lawyers are notorious for many things.


One of those things is pedantry. That is a predictable symptom of a profession that involves hours of debating such matters as whether an "or" is subjunctive, disjunctive, or distributive, or the difference between "should", "shall", and "must".


Another thing we are (unfortunately) known for is a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual habit in our speaking and writing. Sort of the opposite of the fifth rule in George Orwell's Politics and the English Language. While Orwell entreated us to "never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent", many lawyers live by the credo, "never use an everyday English word if you can think of a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word equivalent".


As may be apparent from some other posts on this site, I am unapologetically pedantic, so very much in the first category. But the second category is something I at least try to avoid (with varying success).


As a result of being both a pedant and someone who attempts to follow Orwell's maxim (ahem), one thing that often makes me shudder is the preponderance of "Messrs" in legal writing and speech as a plural form of the English "Mr" (ie when referring to two or more men). It appears on solicitor letters addressed to opposing law firms, it appears in written and oral submissions from counsel, and it appears in the odd judgment. For instance, a search on Jade conducted on 27 January 2025 revealed (by my count) 139 judgments containing "Messrs" in the four months between September to December 2024 (I got sick of counting when I reached August).


Here's one simple illustration of the problem with that. "Messrs" is, of course, an abbreviation of the French word "messieurs", which translates as "my sirs". The female equivalent of "messieurs" is "mesdames" or "mesdemoiselles" (depending on the marriage status of the women in question, there being no French equivalent of the English "Ms"). Those are respectively abbreviated as "Mmes" and "Mlles".


Now, guess how many instances of "Mmes" and "Mlles" appear in published judgments on Jade in the period September to December 2024?


If you guessed zero, you would be correct. According to my searches, as at the time of writing (in January 2025), the expression "Mmes" was last used by the ACT Court of Appeal in Kone Elevators Pty Ltd v Shipton [2021] ACTCA 33 on 5 November 2021, and "Mlles" does not seem to have been used in any judgment on the Jade database.


The obvious takeaway is that this practice of using the abbreviation of a French plural honorific in English writing is something that is almost exclusively used when referring to men and not women. It's the kind of thing most would assume would have long ago been expunged from the profession, but which sadly persists.


That, however, is not the only problem with "Messrs".


Here is the pedantic point I flagged earlier. As I have said, "Messrs" is an abbreviation of the French word messieurs, which is the plural of monsieur, a word commonly abbreviated as "M." or, sometimes, as "Mssr". Monsieur is a contraction of mon sieur, which means "my sir", and, likewise, messieurs is a contraction of mes sieurs, which is the plural of mon sieur (ie "my sirs").


In other words, messieurs is not the plural of the English word "Mr". According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "Mr" was originally an abbreviation of "master", although it is now more associated with "mister (1)"—which the OED describes as a "weakened form of master in unstressed use before a name" (not to be confused with "mister (2)", a device with a nozzle for spraying a mist of water, especially on houseplants).


The plural of "master" is "masters" and, likewise, the plural of "mister" is "misters". Messieurs translates to "my sirs", not "masters", so to use "Messrs" as a plural of "Mr" is not only pretentious and pseudo-intellectual, it is also incorrect.


Just for the record, the female equivalents have the same difficulty. The French word "madame" is a contraction of "ma dame", meaning "my lady", and the word "mademoiselle" is a contraction of "ma demoiselle", meaning "my damsel"—while the English "Mrs", "Miss", and "Ms" are all contractions of "mistress". So although it is much less common, those who use "Mmes" as a plural form of "Ms" are equally incorrect as those who use "Messrs" as a plural form of "Mr".


So what's the correct English way of referring to multiple men? Well, it may be tempting to skip the contractions and just write "Masters" (eg, "Masters Smith and Jones agree"). Unfortunately, however, that has connotations of referring to young children—so is not advisable.


The actual solution is really very simple. Just place "Mr" before each name. Here's a couple of illustrations:


Incorrect: "Messrs Smith and Jones agreed on the way forward".

Correct: "Mr Smith and Mr Jones agreed on the way forward".


Incorrect: "I gave the letter to Messrs Davies and Singh."

Correct: "I gave the letter to Mr Davies and Mr Singh."


It may be slightly more wordy, and it may not have the thrill of pretending you can speak French, but it has the advantage of being proper English. And it is effectively the same as what you already do when referring to women. So it can't be too difficult, can it?

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