This is a serious question

[flemmings]

Why do telemarketers always ask for Mr. or Mrs. Smith when all they have to go by are initials? Has Mrs. become the de facto honorific for all women, as Madame is in French?

I've asked telemarketers this and none of them can tell me. 'It's what they tell us to say.' Yes, but why?

Comments

[ukoku.livejournal.com]

I'll get ones that won't even ask for the Mr. and go straight to the Mrs.

It's something to do with an old stereotype, albeit one that probably had basis in fact, that married women were supposed to be stay-at-home mothers, and that they were more likely to listen to your sales pitch and buy something. Too polite to say no? Gullibility? I'm not sure.

It's not really true anymore, so I don't know why they bother. The second I hear it's a bogus call, I just hang up on them. (In fact, from what I've seen, men are big suckers for sales pitches.)

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

hmmm over here, before they start ... they always ask "Are you the owner of this home?" but I think that that is more due to our 'maid' culture. Although I hate that term. I generally refer to them as home help or housekeepers.

I always say, "No I'm sorry I'm the babysitter, and I have no idea when the parents will be home." (which I also am ^_^ but they don't know that)

But I suppose that also in our case, many homes are rented out and so they might only want/have to do their sales with home owners. So I don't know if that is just us. But how or why the R-o-t-W works I cannot answer sorry!

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why they do it but it annoys me.
I thought Ms. was the new English equivalent of Madame?
Yet they rarely use it.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

I don't know why either. Convention, probably. We're just now starting to purge print conventions from our books, even though those conventions haven't been needed in 15 years.

We do love those calls, though. We get to answer things like "no, she's living in California with another man," or "I'm so sorry, she died several years ago."

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I once got a telemarketing call asking for my father. He'd never lived at that address, and had been dead for several years anyway. (I was eleven or twelve.)

Unsure of the correct response, I said "Um...he can't come to the phone right now."