BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 06:16 PM

I said I like 'ballerino' because I don't know how to pronounce danseur or danceuse. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Rowan
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 06:48 PM

Too busy practising your hippopotamusess-ballerina ballet steps, I expect.

When I saw Lizzie's post on this I thought I'd like to be a hippopotameuse; I have the build for it, if not some of the other necessary attributes.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 07:35 PM

We had lady policemen oop north when I were a lad. Not many, mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 07:44 PM

We'd be more likely to say 'lady cop'. Or these days, since I have more time, I'd say police officer.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Lox
Date: 26 Nov 09 - 08:02 PM

I have to say that in my view only one word describes the suffix "...ess":

And that is ... utterly ... usel.


Especially up in Loch N.


Up there it's like an Illn.


I think I'll go now - I need to sleep I must conf.

I've been up all night watching Porgy and B. (more or L)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:11 AM

We have a woman postman at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 08:18 AM

The female hippopotamus should best referred to as "a hippopotoma", if we defer to the expertise of Flanders and Swann, which of course we should:

The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tiptoeing down to her love...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 08:23 AM

", if we defer to the expertise of Flanders and Swann, which of course we should:"

Indeed we should NOT — they were both at Oxford.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 09:47 AM

The folks formerly known as students - neuter, are now wished to be known as "learners" - even deeper neuter by the idiots at CALAT (Croydon Adult Learning & Training).

They are so imersed in equality - which really amounts to thickos, pooves and imigrants being given more attention.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Smedley
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 11:14 AM

"They are so imersed in equality - which really amounts to thickos, pooves and imigrants being given more attention."

If that's an attempt at irony, it's not successful.

If that's an attempt at provocaton, it worked (just a little bit),

If that's what you really think, I'm sure there is a crypto-fascist groupuscule somewhere that would welcome you with open arms.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 11:42 AM

Well, a bright orange notice at Purley Pool states that they are committed to equality of opportunity and freedom of discrimination in their...............

......all employees are treated fairly ..........regardless of gender, marital status, parental status etc etc..............

BUT THE GENTS' CHANGING ROOM HAS HAD NO HEATING FOR OVER 6 YEARS, which I consider to be an absolute disgrace

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 12:00 PM

Yikes. I'll bite. What's a Gents' Changing Room?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 12:18 PM

Ask Dr Jekyll...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 01:24 PM

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 01:38 PM

What's a Gents' Changing Room?


A little common sense would tell you that it's where men change into their swimming shorts would it not???

A little thick around here aren't they Lizzie!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 01:44 PM

Foreigners from those isles across the water speak in peculiar tongues.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 01:57 PM

Be fair, you've got people like that too in States.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 02:09 PM

A Gents' Changing Room, in the USA, is probably the same thing as a locker room. Are you just as thick?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 03:26 PM

No, been on a diet.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 03:28 PM

:)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 03:48 PM

...is probably the same thing as a locker room.

But there might not be any actual lockers.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 03:53 PM

OK. Put it this way, Kevin: I don't think we have anything called 'Gents' Changing Rooms' in the US.

Frankly- thick or not - my first thought upon the first mention was that he was referring to some kind of private club. As in the old books, you know.

Sounds like baby diaper changing tables to me. :)

Sensitive? Who, me?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 03:56 PM

baby diaper - what hideous phrase is that??? In the UK they are simply nappies, but stink just as badly!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: SharonA
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 04:00 PM

Some have said here that my use of the term "co-chair" or "chair" is incorrect, and that "chair" refers only to the office and not to its occupant. Though that may have been true at one time, I believe the usage is changing; I can find evidence on-line from reliable sources for both sides of the argument.

To Ebbie re "nurse": Hmmm, seems that we're both seeing what we want to see and calling it "obvious"! My perception is that the noun "nurse" has its origins in the verb "nurse" (to suckle) -- a nurse was nourishing another woman's baby which, during the time that the word originated, would have to have meant suckling that baby at the other woman's breast. I dispute your argument that the distinction between "wet nurse" and "dry nurse" means that the origin of the word "nurse" did not have to do with suckling; I would think that the distinction arose after the invention of the baby bottle!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:50 PM

In explication for North Americans-
Nappy, nappie, noppy- of liquors, foaming, having a 'top'. OED
Nappy- said of a cloth with a 'nap', a rough surface. OED
Nappy- a disobedient horse. Etc.

Nappy, colloquial for napkin. Napkin in this sense- a rectangular piece of cotton or absorbant material used as a baby's undergarment by folding, drawing up between the legs and fastening at the waist. 19th c. OED
Diaper in this sense- A baby's napkin or 'clout'. OED
1596, Shakespeare Taming of the Shrew- "Let one attend him with a silver bason, ... Another have the ewer,... the third a diaper" OED

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:53 PM

"baby diaper - what hideous phrase is that???"

Maybe that's why it died out in the UK!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: artbrooks
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 05:59 PM

In the US, "nappy" is most often used, in a manner considered to be offensive, to refer to the hair of women of African descent.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 06:00 PM

Used without adding baby in U. S. Napkin usually reserved for a table napkin.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 09:48 PM

This thread has made me wonder about "coquette". Is it a female or a diminutive "coq(ue)" or is it both.

Being male (if not really masculine, in the eyes of some) and on the 'large' side, I suspect I am neither, although I used to be able to flirt.

Having changed more than my fair share of nappies I'm happy with "napkins" at the dinner table, although they've mostly been called serviettes when I was learning table manners.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 10:11 PM

Serviette - "The older use of the word was exclusively Sc. In the 19th c. it was re-introduced with the French spelling (at first only as a foreign term). It may now be regarded as naturalized, but latterly has come to be regarded as vulgar."
1906, Bland, Lett. Daughter, 53; "...she was the sort who would call a table napkin a serviette."

Comment and quote from Oxford English Dictionary.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Rowan
Date: 27 Nov 09 - 11:42 PM

I love it that 'catters can quote from the OED. My copy (the one with two volumes and a magnifying glass) lives well and truly out of reach of the internet.

And it's not the first time that aspersions have been cast on my familiarity with vulgarity; all I can plead, yer honour, is "that's how I woz brung up!"

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 12:07 AM

Interesting how this thread of mine has drifted into the 1950s AlanRoss/NancyMitford 'U&non-U'/'NoblessOblige' controversy — anticipated by the Hon Nancy in her novel 'ThePursuitOfLove'[1945] ['serviette' rather than 'table napkin' being one of her main markers]; &, as we learn above, even further anticipated [1906? cor!] by one Bland, as adduced by Q above.

drift - drift - drift ··· How Delightful: just like Ratty's 'messing about in boats'...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 07:14 AM

I once described a juggler as a prestidigitrix. Juggless would not have rhymed with "magic so" ..... and jugs has a mamary connotation I would avoid. She also danced with Greenfiddle Morris in Toronto c 1986. Louise Love - what a nice name. I hope she got her PhD in Biochemistry.

The UK Magic Circle includes jugglers and vents (funnily enough) in its membership.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 08:15 AM

Is a serviette a female servant? ...

... ok ok I'll go ...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 08:39 AM

Is a serviette a female servant? ...


No, in non oik circles it's a napkin.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 02:07 PM

Canadians are vulgar too, Rowan. Serviette is alive and well in Canada.

Never heard it in the U. S., but when I moved to Canada, it seemed to be standard usage.
Just like chesterfield for a couch.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: SharonA
Date: 28 Nov 09 - 03:16 PM

"baby diaper - what hideous phrase is that???"

I think it's a phrase meant to specify the object as a diaper for babies rather than for adults with incontinence. Here in the US, at least, the popular brand of adult pull-on diaper is "Depends", which is used rather often in place of a descriptive noun, just as some people will say "Kleenex" (the brand name) rather than "tissue" (a soft paper product used for blowing one's nose).

By the way, those of us Americans who watch BBC programs on public television are familiar with the British use of "napkin" and "nappy" for "diaper."

A chesterfield is a couch in Canada? In the US, it's a brand of cigarette.

Never heard of a serviette before I read it on this thread today. I would have guessed it meant a serving cart for room service at a hotel or for dessert trays at restaurants. Ya learn sumpin new ever' day!

Mr. Red "described a juggler as a prestidigitrix"... Wouldn't that be "prestidigitatrix" if it was supposed to be the feminine form of "prestidigitator"?