When the Italian film producer Carlo Ponti (husband of Sophia Loren) died, the UK paper the Guardian reported, using their approved gender-neutral language, that in his younger days, Ponti was close friends with many "actors".

There were howls of protest from all of Ponti's friends and family that this portrayed him as gay. The Guardian grudgingly accepted that on this occasion, they might perhaps have used the normally taboo word "actresses".