BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Marion
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 03:02 PM

(My post above was addressed to HuwG, not Bill.)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: artbrooks
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 03:07 PM

I remember reading somewhere, but I can't remember where and I'm not interesting in researching the reference, that actors were the (male) professionals while the word actress originally referred to women who hung around the theater trying to make the necessary contacts needed to graduate to the job of mistress. (I was going to say "position", but I figured that Spaw gets enough straight lines.)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 03:34 PM

.........***sigh***............but alas, t'is true.........and more's the pity!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 03:44 PM

Our choir Chairperson has a long standing illness that requires her to be supine a lot of the time.. she signs herself as 'chaise longue'...

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 05:11 PM

"Prince Diana" just wouldn't have sounded right somehow.
.........................................

Why do these things never go the other way? If there's to be one word for both sexes on the stage, why couldn't it have been"actress"?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 05:16 PM

Our old chair has broken down.
May I hold your hand, monsieur?
M. Coq from Armentieres
Neuter of Spain I adore you

And what will the Spaniards and other do with el, la etc.? No more ooh, la la la?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 05:34 PM

"Princess Diana" didn't sound too good to some of us either.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: ClaireBear
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 06:32 PM

A couple of comments on this subject:

I have always felt specifically that "poetess" was intended as a belittling term, as though a poetess was somewhat like a poet, but without real talent -- and probably with purple ink. I believe "poet" is entirely gender neutral and appropriately so.

On the other hand, I have been known to identify myself as a "technical editrix" -- mostly in fun, but I have to say that there's something about that "ix" ending that sounds more dashing than belittling. I rather like it.

Why are men who sew called tailors? What happened to seamsters?

Finally, I sing in a tiny church choir that has but one man, who holds down the bass section. Having the next lowest voice of all present, I hold down the next section up. Does that make me a tenress?

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 07:00 PM

Obviously the -ess ending indicates that the person concerned is female - but why should that be seen as "belittling" except by someone who thinks women are inferior?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 07:18 PM

'seen as "belittling"'- by women who see women as inferior?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 08:07 PM

I was born in the 1950s, and was a card-carrying feminist when I entered the workforce in the 1970s, where worked in jobs that were "non-traditional" (typically male - forester, park ranger, fire fighter). So I should be called a forester, a park ranger, a fire fighter. Those names describe the work, and the job doesn't change if a woman is doing it. But nitwits out there used to ask if I was a "Rangerette." Made me wonder if I should polish my high kicks.

You can carry this discussion to ludicrous ends, and a few of you seem determined to do so. Use the appropriate ending so the sentence makes sense--that's a no-brainer. But where there are titles or jobs where the male/female distinction is not only unnecessary, but it hasn't usually occurred, adding one tends to diminish the female contribution to the work and dismiss women as viable employees or artisans.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 08:15 PM

Sheesh Well, here I go again, making statements that*some* don't understand.

When anyone wonders why the diminutive, cutesy, dismissive terms were coined, stop and think about who coined them. Trust me- 'twarn't the wimmen folks.

One attitude that one encounters less these days but is still around just grinds my soul. That is the attitude that says, NOT in so many words: All Americans like thus-and-so and so do their wives.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Amos
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 09:20 PM

I went to an art show downtown today, housed in the nice buildings owned by the Women's League of San Diego. In the hall, they head a long array of photographs of mostly glaring women, some smiling, going back to 1908, wearing marcel, bobis, perms and other hairdo, all of them clearly social and presentable women. But the thing I noticed was, that even these were pictures of the women who were Chairpersons or Executive Directors or whatever of the Women's Leage, their names in over ninety per cent of the cases were the word "Mrs." followed by their husband's name. I know that was the convention and all that. But way back at the beginning I spotted one from 1918 who bore the name "Mrs" followed by "Lottie T. Something", and I thought she must have been a really brave soul to fly in the face of all that mindless agreement.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 10:00 PM

Good for her. Of course, she could have been a widow or perhaps, a divorced woman.

When one reads the history of around the turn of two centuries ago it is surprising how many people did get divorced. Ordinary people, not just Hollywood stars. (Incidentally, those early papers carried Hollywood news on the front pages, complete with scandalous pictures.)

I used to read a lot of Alaskan and specifically Juneau history in the microfilmed old newspapers. There, one day, I found that one prominent Juneau man had been previously married before he married an equally prominent woman in town. This was in 1903. I know this man's granddaughter who is in her early 80s now and I was curious as to whether she knew.

So one day I asked her- she hadn't known it until she was way past grown.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 12:44 AM

It's all silly!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 12:55 AM

Why does your opinion not surprise me?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: ClaireBear
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 02:56 AM

No, of course I do not see women as inferior. That remark was uncalled for, and not one I will forget. I'll certainly remember it every tme I consider posting to a thread like this again. What arrogance!

Just to make myself clear, I see the kind of thinking that causes some to feel it's necessary or even appropriate to label a poet by gender as inferior.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 09:30 AM

Hey Spaw - no need to make up words. Look up felator and felatrix - They are in the dictionary - Honest!

The one that gets my goat more is 'comedienne'. Why? Surely comedian is not gender specific is it?

One bit of trivia here for you to include in pub quiz questions - Which English word becomes plural by adding an 's' and singular by adding another one? Clue - See earlier postings.

(Not strictly true for the pedants out there but good enough for the Red Lion:-) )

Cheers

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 11:00 AM

"felator and felatrix" "They are in the dictionary"

Not spelled like that, they aren't.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 11:04 AM

Double l's are good.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 11:13 AM

Hey Bill - I can't spull. How do you expekt to look things up in the dicshonairy?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 12:24 PM

*grin*... that's why *I* have spell checkers everywhere... if you don't have one that knows, Google knows everything, including how many others might have spelled it another way.

(my 'installed' spell checker only knew 'fellatio', but I just told it to remember fellatrix )

I am a halfway decent speller, but being a dyslexic typist, I need the help to catch me when my finergs get in reveres odrer.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Wolfgang
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 12:29 PM

Mother Christmess

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 01:13 PM

Are you certain that is not 'Motheress', Wolfgang? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 01:41 PM

"Motheress" would be just teeny bit redundant....but it kinda makes a point.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 01:49 PM

Motheress Fuckeress would probably completely over the top huh? And thinking of things that are also over the top and worn out.........Clik-ka-dee doo dah


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Amos
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 01:57 PM

That's a [urely Latinate construction, Spaw, late Vulgate by the look of it.

Matrix Fucwitz is the ALsatian parallel construction. In the Congo jungle the Itudi pygmies say the same thing "murgle furgle".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 01:59 PM

Amos referred to

"Mrs. Lottie T. Something",

Amos, the old convention was that a divorced woman carried the honorific "Mrs." because she was no longer a Miss (an unmarried and presumably inexperienced woman), but she no longer "belonged" or "was an extension" of Mr. Something, so she was Mrs. Lottie T. Something, assuming she had not taken back her maiden name when divorcing or divorced.   

A widow, on the other hand, still had that connection with her deceased husband, so she was "Mrs. John T. Something" until and unless she remarried, when she became "Mrs. Clarence Othername".   

And of course one might refer to the ex-Miss Jones as "Lottie Jones Something" and later "Lottie Jones Something Othername".

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 02:16 PM

I can't see that "actress" should be classed as "diminutive, cutesy, dismissive" , rather than as a convenient way of providing a bit of extra information that is likely to be relevant.

After all, if you were casting the Scottish play, you'd want a male Macbeth and a female Lady Macbeth, both plum parts of equal status, so what's wrong with calling one an actor and the other an actress? (And if you were casting for a pantomime you'd obviously want a male Dame and a female Principal Boy.)

Using a diminutive ending such as "ette" is of course pretty silly - I wouldn't actually be too sure whether the blame for that kind of thing actually lies with men or women, but either way they would need to be pretty illiterate.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:07 PM

"After all, if you were casting the Scottish play, you'd want a male Macbeth and a female Lady Macbeth, both plum parts of equal status, so what's wrong with calling one an actor and the other an actress?" McGrath

Ah ha, Kevin. "you'd want a male McBeth and a female Lady McBeth. A leetle redundancy there? (Which makes me very happy- speaking as a literalistic queen of redundsncy.)

Why should one need to specify that a actor and an actress were needed for that particular play?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:15 PM

You wouldn't want any McBeths in the Scottish play!

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:16 PM

You'd just advertise for actors to read for parts in MacBeth, and if someone like Orson Welles applied for the part of Lady MacBeth, you'd inquire whether he could do justice to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Penny S.
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:32 PM

The word priestess is used in the debate about women priests, and it is not used by those in favour. It is used to convey that women cannot be priests, and are therefore something else, probably dubious morally. This is conveyed by tone of voice or language surrounding the word.

I think it to be appropriate to use whatever term a person wants tp be known as. So if a woman wishes to be known as an actress or a poetess, it is up to her. And if she wishes to be known as an actor or a poet, it would be impolite to address her by the other term. Whatever the addressor feels about it.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:53 PM

My apologies to MAcbeth.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 05:54 PM

Sorry about the B. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 06:51 PM

Orson Welles would certainly have made an impressive Pantomime Dame.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Nov 09 - 10:37 PM

Sorry about the B. :) >>

Still haven't got it right, Ebbie. It actually is called 'Macbeth'. There's no play called 'HamLet', is there? §;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 12:35 AM

I believe in Bill D implicitly. Take it up with him. ;)
(I plead guilty as charged. But you do know there are many names that do have a different format from Macbeth. HamLet, indeed.)

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 01:07 AM

Indeed so — McBeth, MacBeth, McBeath, MacBeath, M'Beth &c &c &c. But the King of Scotland 1040-1057 & the eponymous hero of, imo, Will Shax's greatest tragedy & hence the world's greatest play, did just happen to be Macbeth...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 01:54 AM

Not but what Will, as was his wont [no pun intended!], played a bit fast&loose with the actual history. According to Holinshed, Macbeth defeated his predecessor Duncan in fairly fought battle & thus reigned perfectly justly and legally by right of conquest, with his consort Gruach, [a widow, which might well answer L C Knights' ironic question in the title of his famous essay 'How many Children Had Lady Macbeth?'] — none of which, of course, affects the outstanding intrinsic quality of the great tragedy...

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 05:59 AM

O'Thello - after all "Moor" is a common enough Irish name.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 07:08 AM

"I'll just jump to the bottom and state that I find suffixes like "ess" and "ette" to be abhorent. "

That's tough because it's the Queen's English which is the correct version, not some excuse of a language invented by raving lesbians and raving lefties.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Mo the caller
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 07:27 AM

I called for a Barn Dance last month for the Lord Mayor's Charity. This year Stoke on Trent's Lord Mayor is female which leads to various confused thoughts.
If a town has a mayor the wife of a mayor is a mayoress.
If the post is held by a woman she is a lady mayor and her husband is a ???
If the town has a lord mayor is the wife of a male lord mayor a lady mayoress, or a lord mayoress or what??
If the post is held by a woman she can't be a lady mayor, because that term is already used so is she a lady lord mayor?
And what is her husband?

Does anyone know? Maybe this should be a song challenge.

"I'mmm only a little lammmb sir"

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 08:30 AM

and the Queen is the Duke (yes, Duke) of Lancaster - What does that make Phil the Greek?

And no-one has answered my trivia question yet - Do you give up or is the question too lame?

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 09:30 AM

The answer is Prince. Thought 100 people would have replied by now. What do I get as my prize?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 09:37 AM

Some female roles get the suffix 'ette' too, as 'usherette'

Why not 'usheress'?

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 09:45 AM

I've never quite managed to get my head around "Princess Michael of Kent." Actually, I don't really want to know.

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 10:47 AM

Yay! Well done MtheGM. No prize I'm afraid but the satisfaction of knowing you beat everyone else to it:-)

And I'll by you a pint next time you are in Manchetser or Leeds

DeG

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 11:14 AM

http://www.fife.50megs.com/scottish-surnames-m.htm

A person could get confused trying to remember which are MAC, or Mac or Mc

I will take my punishment

Lay on, MACDuff! Or Macduff,,,or MacDuff...or MacDUFF

Subject: RE: BS: Usage: -ess suffix for female operatives
From: Mr Happy
Date: 24 Nov 09 - 11:22 AM

ioo!