The word 'Ladies'

LAYDEEEES 👅👅👅👅👅👅👅👅👅

There are occasions, mainly involving small children and good manners, where it is either not possible or absurdly stilted to not use"lady" or "gentleman"

Say thank you to the person/woman sounds ill- mannered. I would not like to be addressed in that way.

The words lady and ladies always reminds me of that David Walliams sketch. Imo I'd prefer if people just dropped these labels altogether - much easier - just say "hello" and start talking.

It is "Womban" singular and "Wimmin" plural. Anything else is patriarchal oppression.

Faux posh? As opposed to posh, where you treat everyone else as a pleb.

I'll carry on being faux posh and over polite to the nice lady then.

"Say thankyou to the nice person" 😂 Sorry but that is so daft. I will carry on saying "lady" and "man" and so will most people. Hope your blood pressures won't suffer too much.

Nah, you're alright.

I tried it today.

"Morning Women" - Glare

"Excuse Me Women" - Glare

"Women First" - Glare

"Say thank you to the nice woman" - Funny Look

Maybe tomorrow you can try:

"Morning everyone"

"Excuse me, everyone" or just, "excuse me."

Don't think there's any need for either "women first" or "ladies first" - that does deserve a glare.

"Say thank you to the nice person."

I tried it today.

"Morning Women" - Glare

"Excuse Me Women" - Glare

"Women First" - Glare

"Say thank you to the nice woman" - Funny Look

zodsfox But it's not just the odd thing, some people here seem constantly het up about all kinds of insignificant shit. Just seems a sad way to live.

Totally depends on the context.

If I was being served in a shop and someone interrupted I'd prefer the assistant to say 'I'm just dealing with this lady' rather than 'I'm just dealing with this woman'.

If I'm telling my child something involving a woman I will say 'that lady over there' rather than 'that woman over there'.

If I'm at work and a man is referring to a bunch of women as 'ladies' then no way!

Ime the term lady has only ever been used as a stick to beat me with e.g, when I was 8 and playing outdoors with friends in the summer I was wearing blue shorts with daisies on only to be pulled inside sharpish by the man who impregnated my mother and was told to pull my act together and dress appropriately now as I was a 'young lady' bleurgh. I felt really dirty that day and had no idea why! We need a new catch all term. Id quite like to be a phlerb, rolls off the tongue.

A director addresses us all in his messages as People or Everyone, to avoid being accused of using gender pronouns. That I find silly!

Why is it silly? "Hi everyone" is surely the most likely way to avoid offending anyone? You can'take get more inclusive.

It's not faux posh.

It's saying everyone's a lady and etiquette's for snobs. it

It may well be vulgar: that's generally what I aim for.

I was always taught that it was impolite (read 'vulgar') and that women was the correct term

Same here, although I'm not a native speaker. According to my very well-spoken ex, saying "She's a very nice lady" or "Thank the kind lady" is apparently a faux-posh lower middle class thing similar to using "passed away"?

The reason 'woman' can sound a bit off to some ears, is I think because not all that long ago, anyone below a certain social level would usually be referred to as a 'woman', often with sniffy undertones, whereas anyone above it - MC+ - would be a 'lady'.

Anyone who reads novels that are even a bit ancient will see it.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the old Anglo Saxon origin of 'lady' meant 'giver of bread'. Which is most of us, if you count everything we feed them, and not just beans/Marmite on toast.

I know I've been guilty of saying to Gdd (still under 3) 'Say thank you to the lady,' in a shop, etc. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying 'the woman' , since I'm sure some people would take it amiss, so I suppose the answer is to leave it out altogether. And I suppose my main concern is training her to say thank you as a matter of course.

Grammar I get called Love, Darling etc by male contractors at work and I say to them, no, call me () and they get arsey but I am not their darling.

*word not work.

Old news now but Ladies and Gentlemen was banned by TfL as an intro to their announcements.

I am not a fan of Ladies as a work. It sounds feeble compared with Women.

A manager once sent an email to "Guys and Gals" and yes, I was the only one who called him out about it (hardly a Gal going into my 40s) but still, language is important. I am paid the same as my male counterparts and I deserve the same respect.

A director addresses us all in his messages as People or Everyone, to avoid being accused of using gender pronouns. That I find silly!

Seriously, accept that different people have different things that bug them and stop telling them to shut up because you don't care.

For example, I couldn't care less if someone parks over my drive for an hour. Some on Mumsnet would be at all-out war. I don't tell them off

Seriously, chill out. This is one of the reasons feminists get a bad name. Some of the women in this section getting angry about NOTHING.

Wow, you learn some things.
Given the huge amount of women who happily use the word without taking offense, I don't think it can be all that offensive.
Of course, as GuardianLions says, it can be used in a belittling way (but then all the words for female can be. Am I a massive mysogynist for using woman avove??).

Although I do see red when I am called, 'sweetheart' or My Love' as was what happened in New Look by an assistant in her teens to me

If it was a woman saying this to me it wouldn’t bother me. The next man that calls me “pet” however...

To whom though? How to you propose we indicate the person to whom the 'thank you' is to be addressed, shall we point (rude) or we just hope the child guesses right?

Surely the person being thanked and the small child will know to whom the 'thanks' are being expressed?

Nope - that's the point. You say 'Say thank you to the lady' or 'Say thank you to the gentleman' but if you just say 'Say thank you' they will probably say 'Thank you Mummy' (because that is also valid and something you probably expect when you are teaching them manners day to day) - but in this instance you expected it to be directed at the person in the shop serving you.

That would be why being clear, to the child, is important, not cutting the sentence short for fear of somehow being offensive by using the wrong term to correctly identify the person who served you to whom you can't use the term 'person' in that context because it would be rude/ridiculous.