Mind your language
WHEN LOVELY woman stoops to folly you know it's Ladies' Day at Ascot again.
The event also proved illustrative of a matter in which you (dear readers) took some interest a few weeks ago: the dif- ference between ladies and women (in speech).
Here is a nicely mixed extract from the Times's report of last week's tawdry day at the races: 'Not even the weather could dampen the spirits of the women at Ladies' Day . . . Alezer Reger said: "Socially Ladies' Day is more of a girls' thing anyway." ' Without even wanting to be snobby, you wouldn't see me dead at Ladies' Day, dearie. I suppose a day out with the girls is for some women like a night out with the lads for some men, though girlish has not taken on the same connotations as laddish, nor can it unless it vacates the semantic slot reserved to express winsome, ingenue qualities.
Anyway, girl is patronising and demeaning and lady is cloyingly chival- rous, according to one reader, Christine Shuttleworth, who has kindly sent me an off-print of an article she wrote in the newsletter of the Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders.
But some usages, she suggests, are insulated by their context: lady can imply sophistication and gutsy determi- nation, as in 'Katharine Hepburn is one terrific lady'. And what is a shop assis- tant to do if she has to say to a col- league: 'Would you serve this woman/lady, please?'? It would be impolite to say woman.
Miss (or probably Dr) Shuttleworth also points out that in Germany any woman of mature years is called Frau; the same, I think is true in France with Madame; but my husband got into trou- ble with a steward(ess) on Iberia for calling her Senora instead of Senorita. In Italy they call women academics Profes- soressa or Dottoressa. I might adopt that; `Dottoressa Dot Wordsworth' sounds very classy.
Another reader, Mr (presumably) Peers Carter, a translator, notes that, though in French ministre may refer either to a man or a woman, he found it a little curious at first to hear Mrs Thatcher (before she became a Lady) being addressed as Madame le Premier Ministre (with the grammatically mascu- line gender). She certainly was not une ministresse.
Well, she may have been One of Us, but she certainly wasn't one of the girls.
Dot Wordsworth
Previous page
