I always thought that it was Mrs. = missus, Ms. = miz, at least that’s how I would say them, but I now realize that a) that’s plainly incorrect and b) I’ve never actually ever seen them non-abbreviated.

If an abbreviation is never expanded, is it still an abbreviation? Personally I think it isn’t; I advocate for condensing i.e./e.g. to simply ie and eg, though this is a minority opinion.

I'm 55 years old and never thought about that, because the link never occurred to me.

But when Mrs first stood for Mistress, the word Mistress wasn't "loaded" at all.

I never knew Mrs. stood for "mistress", I always thought it just came from "Mr's", as in, the wife of some mister

> "Mistress" is a loaded word

Only in English.