I agree that the adjectival use of "lady" as in "lady traindriver" or "lady construction worker" can often appear condescending. The speaker is drawing attention to the person's sex without good reason. However, as Bob has said, in the case of "lady doctor", the sex of the doctor can be important.

AHD says in its usage note:

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When the sex of the person is relevant, the preferred term for this usage is woman. The adjectival form female is also acceptable...

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This would certainly only be American usage; over here "lady" and "woman" are pretty much synonymous in this sort of usage. "Female" is rarely used as it sounds rather formal and clinical.

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She would not, for example, allow me to use the term "master copy" insisting that I referred to it a "original copy".

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I say if it matters, go ahead and make the distinction. If it doesn't, it very often is just so much mental originalbation.

I'm not sure I agree, CJ. We all want to be precise when we talk or write, or we wouldn't be posting here. "Original copy" is clearly wrong, even to those of use who aren't lawyers.

Rather than explain the joke behind my last post (the only reason for posting it, actually) let me jump in and try to defend the minority view.

"Original copy" can be perfectly logical. If you have your "original" (which I'm sure everyone would agree is the better term of the two) and then you make 9 copies of it, you now have 10 copies of the document in question. All of them are copies but only one is the "original copy."

Taken in this light, it's not an oxymoron at all.

CJ, would you call a document a "copy" even when it is the only such document that exists, indeed that ever existed? (Would you call the Mona Lisa a "copy" of the Mona Lisa?) If not -- and I think not -- then #1 was not a "copy" before reproductions ##2-10 were made. How then does #1 change and become a "copy" by virtue of the latter being produced?

But of course I understand what you are saying. We speak of "a copy of the daily paper", even though it was not copied from anything, but rather came straight from the printing press. Apparently the noun "copy" has two distinct meanings.

Yes, Shu, the dictionary definition supports that. This is another one of those words that has opposite definitions.

I thought this might be an appropriate thread for this post. I haven't heard of "neo-feminism" before, have you? According to the article I read, it is a word used by the teenagers of today, and it means "womanpower" or "I'm in charge of my body and my destiny." However, the odd part of this article was that it said that "pole dancing" was a symbol of neo-feminism. Being sheltered , I guess, I had never heard of that either, but it is dancing around a pole and stripping. This article was saying that "pole dancing" is the real rage, and that teenage girls consider this a code for "neo-feminism." I guess these stripper poles are available all over the Web. Some are portable, others stationary and with footlights and smoke machines. Has anyone heard of this new phenomenon?

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Originally posted by shufitz:
How then does #1 change and become a "copy" by virtue of the latter being produced?

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Just for the sake of argument, say life begins at birth (and believe me I am NOT trying to begin any sort of pro-life/pro-choice debate here) and you are the older of a pair of twins. To split hairs just a bit (quite a bit, actually) I would say that you were only a twin after your sibling was born. Same way with the copies. After more are made, there is the "original copy" and the others just as there is the older twin and the younger twin.

To follow the analogy further, if another sibling was born that same day, you might have been an only child for a few minutes, a twin for a few minutes more, and then a triplet.

Or maybe not. All I know is that "original copy" makes sense to me.

CJ, I agree with you if you consider the definition of copy that means manuscript set in print, i.e. a "copy" of a book.

However (and, I don't want to start a pro-life/choice discussion, either), I do disagree with you that the baby isn't a twin until a second is born. Usually a woman knows she is having twins in the first trimester.

And, for the discussion of neofeminism and stripper poles, I did find a Web site for a stripper pole. They aren't cheap! Is neofeminism a word that others have heard?

In the days before printing, a copy of a book was quite literally that. The author wrote the original manuscript, and copies were made by hand. We still retain "manuscript" for the original version of a book, even if it was produced on a typewriter or computer. Copies are produced on the printing press.

What do the signs for what I understand are called "restrooms" or "bathrooms" in the US say? In the UK we call them "toilets" or "lavatories", and the signs usually say Ladies and Gentlemen (or Gents). Some will say Women and Men and a very few will use some coy circumlocution. One example of the latter that I saw in one pub was Setters and Pointers.

Quote "...I do disagree with you that the baby isn't a twin until a second is born...."

On this topic - which twin is held to be the older in the USA? (This is obviously important from the point of view of inheritance)

In the UK it is the firstborn; however, I did hear that in France it was the last of the set of twins, triplets or whatever (someone told me that the rationale was "first in, last out")

Richard English

In the UK we call them "toilets" or "lavatories", and the signs usually say
Ladies and Gentlemen
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Around here it's Damas Y Caballeros. Just why Mexican men ride horses to the can, I'll never understand!

Asa, when Shu and I visited you, I don't recall that at all! It is usually Men or Women in the U.S., though also Ladies and Gentlemen. We also have some "coy circumlocutions" (I like that phrase!), in which case I always get mixed up! I like "pointers" and "setters," though! I remember one of my nursing students (let's say she wasn't a "star" and leave it at that!) walked into the men's room once in the hospital. A male medical student came in and said, "You're in the wrong bathroom." Now, mind you, it had urinals and all. Well, this was a persistent student (who grieved my grade, by the way, though I won.) So, she said, "No, you're in the wrong bathroom!" Well, he evidently bolted out in fear, looked at the sign, and came back in and told her.

Richard, the first one out is the firstborn in the U.S. I had no idea it was different elsewhere. Of course, it wouldn't make an iota of difference here, but in the U.K. I suppose it would be the difference between who was king and who wasn't!

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Originally posted by Richard English: which twin is held to be the older in the USA? I did hear that in France it was the last of the set of twins, triplets or whatever (someone told me that the rationale was "first in, last out")

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That wouldn't make much sense in the case of identical twins. For the there are no twins until the fertilized ovum divides, at which time both of the twins are formed simultaneously.

"Last in first out"?" Sort of a LIFO concept? Well, if you'll forgive a terrible pun, there's no "accounting" for the French.

Primogeniture (where all the belongings and title passed to the oldest son) was customary in England in medieval times and was not abolished by statute until 1925.

It still applies in the case of the Crown and also for inherited titles. It never happened in the USA.

Richard English