Monday, July 24, 2006

Pet Peeve

The following words are not interchangeable:

Blond and blonde
Brunet and brunette
Masseur and masseuse

and I'm sure I'm out of fashion with this one:

Actor and actress

Well, that's it for today.
Posted by at

7 comments:

Jase said...

I'm guessing you were disappointed when you ordered the blond masseur/actor and something completely different showed up...?

7:44 PM
Jess said...

I'm with you.

8:33 PM
palochi said...

You say potato, I say carbohydrates.

2:23 PM
dpaste said...

In my opinion, "actress" only exists as an award category. There are no doctresses or lawyeresses.

6:20 PM
Crash said...

David, there are actresses because females joined that profession well before there were female lawyers and doctors. I imagine if women had been practicing medicine in the 1600s, there may well have been doctresses. Lawyers . . . different etymolgy. Maybe lawyeres. But I prefer lawyerettes.

10:50 PM
Sherry said...

Not that this may be considered particularly relevant but the comments reminded me of a certain bit in Pratchett's Men at Arms (pg 69 in my edition) where it goes a bit like this:

[Vimes talking]"... The head honcho -"
"Unless he's a queen," said Carrot.
Vimes glared at him, and then nodded.
"OK, or the head honchette -"
"No, that'd only apply if she was a young woman. Queens tend to be older. She'd have to be a ... a honcharina? No, that's for very young princesses. No. Um. A honchesa, I think."

That's all I wanted to say.

3:55 PM
Anonymous said...

I particulary like manageress.

2:48 PM

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