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Now learn that there are people who don’t even like the word “lady” because of its etymological origin.
The “l” and “a” are effectively those of the word “loaf”, and the “-dy” comes from a word meaning “dough-worker”. That is, “lady” is the title for someone who makes the bread. The one who does the cooking. The one whose place is in the kitchen.
The person who taught me this was fine with the descriptor “woman” on account of “man” being the species first. They considered later male-specific interpretations to be irrelevant.
Edit: Now are the downvotes because they don’t agree with this argument, or because I chose this place and time to bring this up. Hmm.
Objecting to a word because of its origins 800 years ago is ridiculous. If people want to object to words based on possibly offensive origins, they’ll have to throw out an awful lot of them!
As a side note, “lord” originates from the Old English words for “loaf ward”, or keeper of the bread. Interesting!
What I’ve learned from this comment is that there is an extremely small percentage of gals who may dislike the term ladies based on a very obscure reason, so until they tell me their personal objections the reasonable thing is to go with the common societal usage of the word.
You’re probably getting down voted because it’d be the same as if I got on my high horse and replied, “well you oughta learn that some people don’t even like the word ‘person’ because it reminded them of existing”.
Like sure, that happened to you and it’s great that you can now refer to your friend the way they prefer. But that’s such a niche situation that I don’t think it should be conveyed in a manner as if people were inadequate for not knowing. Makes a good story to tell though.
If you’d just said “fun fact, some people blah blah blah” it carries a very different tone then “good start, now learn that blah blah blah”
One implies it is an experience you had, the other implies it is an experience that all others should’ve known.
You know, taking a 30 second look at the wiktionary page for ‘lady’ would have given you the proper etymological evolution of ‘lady’ and you still would have been correct about the meaning of the word that it originally evolved from. Either way, language grows and evolves. Meanings change. To judge a modern word off of its archaic origins is asinine.
Etymology isn’t relevant to how a word is used now. I can guarantee you that nobody hears the word “lady” and thinks “They just called me a bread-maker! How rude!”
![Everett True teaches a rude man to respect women [Outbursts of Everett True, 1914]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/97655023-0c59-49a4-8ada-302a6d0bad04.jpeg){kind=link}
Good start.
Now learn that there are people who don’t even like the word “lady” because of its etymological origin.
The “l” and “a” are effectively those of the word “loaf”, and the “-dy” comes from a word meaning “dough-worker”. That is, “lady” is the title for someone who makes the bread. The one who does the cooking. The one whose place is in the kitchen.
The person who taught me this was fine with the descriptor “woman” on account of “man” being the species first. They considered later male-specific interpretations to be irrelevant.
Edit: Now are the downvotes because they don’t agree with this argument, or because I chose this place and time to bring this up. Hmm.
Objecting to a word because of its origins 800 years ago is ridiculous. If people want to object to words based on possibly offensive origins, they’ll have to throw out an awful lot of them!
As a side note, “lord” originates from the Old English words for “loaf ward”, or keeper of the bread. Interesting!
it used to be woman and werman and then the wer got dropped in modern English
wif(e)man and wer(e)man technically, but yeah.
thank you. I should’ve looked it up, I was just going off top of head
THERE man
What I’ve learned from this comment is that there is an extremely small percentage of gals who may dislike the term ladies based on a very obscure reason, so until they tell me their personal objections the reasonable thing is to go with the common societal usage of the word.
You’re probably getting down voted because it’d be the same as if I got on my high horse and replied, “well you oughta learn that some people don’t even like the word ‘person’ because it reminded them of existing”.
Like sure, that happened to you and it’s great that you can now refer to your friend the way they prefer. But that’s such a niche situation that I don’t think it should be conveyed in a manner as if people were inadequate for not knowing. Makes a good story to tell though.
If you’d just said “fun fact, some people blah blah blah” it carries a very different tone then “good start, now learn that blah blah blah”
One implies it is an experience you had, the other implies it is an experience that all others should’ve known.
You know, taking a 30 second look at the wiktionary page for ‘lady’ would have given you the proper etymological evolution of ‘lady’ and you still would have been correct about the meaning of the word that it originally evolved from. Either way, language grows and evolves. Meanings change. To judge a modern word off of its archaic origins is asinine.
At no point did I say I held the opinion myself. The specific person I knew who held it would have been equally charitable about yours.
Hmm
Etymology isn’t relevant to how a word is used now. I can guarantee you that nobody hears the word “lady” and thinks “They just called me a bread-maker! How rude!”