never, thank God, that barbaric innovation of our times - Ms. - in those days ms. meant "manuscript"
My father, who was born in 1931, said his 6th-grade math teacher, in McMinnville Tennessee, insisted on that. I suggested that perhaps it was just the Southern way of pronouncing Mrs. (still very common - Miz Smith, for example) and he said that she had spelled it Ms.
The South's also kept the charming (to me, anyway) pre-nom for a married woman of Miss plus her first name - my name to the neighborhood children is "Miss Nina."
Yessir, no ma'm are so automatic to me- I've been pegged more than once- "you're from the south aren't you?" I'm over 40 and still refuse to call "elders" by their first name withou precluding it with Mr. or Miz. I'm not much on kids calling adults by their first name!