Helen Mirren

[Martin]

just caught the tv news, upon which was a piece on the delightful Helen Mirren who had just won some award or another - what was notable was that this lady (Dame), at the very peak of her career was unabashedly, and proudly referring to actRESSES!
Can't see her worrying about the rubbish that the word is in any way derogatory...........she is a lady who acts, and is proud to be an actress!
........there may be hope for us yet!

[Andy Hamilton]

The reason that actress has been dropped by many is because of the old English meaning Actress = Prostitute. I can understand why some have decided to drop it in favour of actor. That aside we have been brought up with the word actress meaning a woman who acts.

It just goes to show how patriarchal the English language can be the best example of this is Master, the female equivalent? Mistress.

[Martin]

shepherd and shepherdess
policeman and policewoman
chauffeur and chauffeuse
- no problem, no derogatory comments, just proper words that in one word specifically says we are talking about - for instance a lady who shepherds!
Sorry, this whole politically-correct nonsense is just that - nonsense! It seeks to rob the language of perfectly good words, sacrificed on the altar of "offence being taken".............I didn't see Dame Helen finding it offensive being an actress - she positively embraces being a lady who acts!
Are we now to suffer the ludicrous situation whereby we have to refer to a female policeman? (when "policewoman" does fine!)

[Andy Hamilton]

NOt really sure if you get the point I am trying to make here Martin. Yes there are obvious exceptions to the rule and I could list some more deflamitory examples of the gender bias.

Very obvious one being Mr and Miss or Mrs even the word Ms has become a bit of misnomer for equalling the bias as it has negative conatations too. Does there need to be three words for women and just one for men? Does it matter if a woman is married, Divorced or whatever?

As for actress, I see nothing wrong with women wanting to move away from using a term that can mean prostitute. If they are proud to use actress then fair play to them.

I don't see any of this being politicaly correct nonesense just strikes me that as we move towards equality then the language has to catch up too. It is ludicrous to think that we would have to say woman policeman when we have a perfectly good term of police woman.

[Martin]

why should the word alter? - many jobs and names have "connotations" - if I were casting a play, and wanted someone to play Ophelia, I want an actress - a lady who acts - the word may have had unfortunate connotations back in history, but that is long gone - we should be mature enough to realise that choice of profession has little to do with morals, and to "socially engineer" our wonderful language robs it of it's richness (quite apart from being damn silly!) - having to use two words instead of one, which if I were a pedant I would point out are actually incorrect - "a female actor" actually means a man who acts, but who is female!
ps, try it on the French, with two sexes of words, or the Germans with three (Das Madchen)...........

[pskipper]

Perhaps we should re-introduce Master for unmarried men, do away with Miss and Ms and replace them with Spinster. Two names for each gender! (stir stir, evil chuckle)

[red]

if I were a pedant I would point out are actually incorrect - "a female actor" actually means a man who acts, but who is female! :

and yet according to oxford dictionary an actor is:

noun 1 a person whose profession is acting. 2 a participant in an action or process

no mention of the word 'man' in there, so you are not correct. (not that I am going to be pedantic either )

if you look up the word 'actress' in the same place you get

noun a female actor

so according to oxford distionary - the word actor could apply to male and female and the word actress could only apply to females

[Martin]

sounds like the new "politically correct" version of the dictionary to me! - not the original meaning as learnt at school (back in the dark ages!)
Would this perchance be the same dictionary that tells me it is now "correct" to refer to being "fed up OF something"?.............................

[Masco&Bongo]

Would this perchance be the same dictionary that tells me it is now "correct" to refer to being "fed up OF something"?.............................

What should it be?

[Muddypause]

Martin, you're on pretty dangerous ground by quoting the rights and wrongs of dictionaries - it was, after all, you who kicked off this whole flipping thing on another thread by claiming the correctness of the word 'longditude'; a word, it transpires, which does not appear in any dictionary.

...the delightful Helen Mirren who had just won some award or another - what was notable was that this lady (Dame), at the very peak of her career was unabashedly, and proudly referring to actRESSES! cheers cheers cheers
Can't see her worrying about the rubbish that the word is in any way derogatory...........she is a lady who acts, and is proud to be an actress! cheers

My, how those luvvies just love to congratulate themselves, don't they? <Yaaaawn>. Can you imagine a similarly glittering annual event for the Plumber Of The Year Awards ("...and the award for the best installation of a shower tray goes to...")?

I saw that item on the news too, but I guess it must have been on another channel. In the snippet I saw she was speaking after the event, and it seemed clear that the very point she was making, in accepting the award as an 'actress', was a challenge to way that 'actresses' are not considered on level terms with male actors.

Why isn't there an overall category for Best Actor (gender irrelevant)? Why do women have to be given separate 'actress' categories? If the nominations committee thought she was good enough to be up against Judy Dench, et al, why wasn't she considered good enough to be up against a male actor? What discrepancy could possibly be exposed by this? What possible difference could her gender make to whether she merits an award for her acting ability? Does the Booker Prize have a separate award for authoresses? Does the Turner Prize have a separate section for artistesses? Would the Plumber Of The Year Awards have a separate category for Best Plumberess ("...and the award for the cutest plumber's bum goes too..." Noooooo; don't go there!)?

Have to say I am puzzled why you reintroduced the subject at all. Didn't we cover it enough before? IIRC, you were pretty much a lone voice on the matter. Quite clearly there is no meeting of minds here; you dismiss people's views as 'political correctness', and don't seem to take on board any of the points they make, so I reckon you should stop worrying your pretty little head about it.

PS. Masco&Bongo - you can be bored of something, tired of it, but fed up with it. I fear several people will be feeling all three WRT this topic.

[Martin]

fed up WITH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As a child, I would have been in deep trouble for such ungrammatical and incorrect use of the English language - I was taught that "fed up OF something" was plain wrong, and bad grammar - now we have to accept it...............
....doubtless the word "beetroot" is know taught as being possessed of two glottal stops..................

[the.fee.fairy]

ooh i enjoy a good language debate.

Personally, i am a Ms, therefore, no-one need ever know if/when i get married, i won't have to change all my bank details etc (oh, BTW, if and when, he WILL be taking my name, i'm one of the last in the strain, and there are so few of us about he has no choice...).

I hate the use of 'of' lately, i really hate it. Like could of...it makes no sene grammatically, you can have a coat of paint, a lock of hair, but could is the passive, so therefore, the word is have, could have is the correct phrase!

Same as that stupid americanism: I could care less - well, if you could care less, you must care a little bit at least, the phrase is: couldn't care less, meaning that i care so little, it would be impossible to care any less!

However, the English language is evolving, as are dialects - so sorry to point this out, Martin, but glottal stops are an accent a dialect matter, and not a general language and grammar matter - if you have a problem with glottal stops, then you must also have a problem with the liverpudlian 'g' in singing, and the pronunciation of bAth rather than bARth (or vice versa).

[pskipper]

I always liked the word glottal-stop. Incidentally a friend of mine who comes from an arabic country once told me that british dialect english is the only other language in the world which contains as many glottalstops as arabic.

[Millymollymandy]

I think that 'could of' is just incorrect spelling of 'could've', i.e. 'could have'. A lot of people write/type phonetically - I've seen this a lot on forums!

What is a glottal stop by the way?

[pskipper]

It's when you leave out a letter by making a sound with the back of your throat, try saying glottal leaving out the t's.