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.

7 comments:

Jase said...

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

Jess said...

I'm with you.

palochi said...

You say potato, I say carbohydrates.

dpaste said...

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

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.

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.

Anonymous said...

I particulary like manageress.