I found an archived cover story from 1980 issue of New York magazine about how to get into the New York Times wedding (or “society”) section. For New Yorkers, this is probably one of the most popular sections of the Sunday Times. Anyway, 1980 was thirty years ago, but the amount of hilariously dated commentary in this article is unbelievable.

The Times (even today) always uses courtesy titles in its articles (hence the famous story that they wrote an article about Meat Loaf as “Mr. Loaf.”) But since they didn’t introduce “Ms.” until 1986 (and only after great debate), the Times would use “Miss” for all brides who were entering their first marriage. (Even today, the Times is merciless in listing former marriages “which ended in divorce” in the announcements.)

So, when a friend of John Oakes, then a big-time editor, and even more importantly, a Sulzberger by birth, and thus, an owner of the Times, requested that his previously married friend be given the honorific “Miss,” the then society editor yelled, “This girl is not a virgin, and I’m not going to make her one!”