Mind your language
CHERCHEZ la femme, they say. But what do you call a female of the human species? Do you cringe at the word lady as some people do at the word toilet (insisting on woman and lavatory)?
I recently heard a sermon in which the woman caught in adultery (John viii 3) was referred to by the preacher as a lady, which she wasn't, indeed the whole Point of the story was that she wasn't. Other people feel a danger of patronis- ing women by calling them ladies: little old ladies, cleaning ladies and so on.
Hasn't this squeamishness gone too far? Lady is a good old word, and, like its male counterpart lord, is unparal- leled in any other European language, because its etymological sense is bread- kneader — hlaefdige (and there is a con- nection with paradise and plum-duff Which there is no space to go into here). Lord, or hlaford, once hlafweard, signi- fied bread-keeper.
Long may a lady come in and do for You; long may I use a Ladies' Lavatory and not a Women's Toilet.
Dot Wordsworth
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