Elfin Cottage - For Sale!

[Kate Mary]

I absolutely agree Rob, I much prefer actress but I hate the terms authoress or poetess. I'm also rather fond of the term aviatrix for a lady pilot!

[pete9012S]

Any thoughts? Or thoughtless?

[Rob Houghton]

I guess a man shouldn't have an opinion on this, but I do, lol!

Should be Shepherd and Shepherdess. I like some of the traditional terms.

I agree about 'authoress' - sounds a bit strange, and I think even Enid referred to herself as an 'author' rather than authoress.

I've heard people complaining about using the term 'Lioness' because its sexist...should just be 'lion' -- but somehow that sounds a bit ill-educated!

I also prefer 'steward' and 'stewardess' and 'prince and princess'. I mean...anyone who really is a hard-line feminist would surely want princes and princesses all to be 'princes''...

Sometimes the 'ess' is there for a good reason, in my view - and I fail to see why its looked on as somehow secondary or less important...but as I say, maybe a woman is better placed to say.

[Daisy]

I can't believe any woman thought it in any way inferior until they were told so by the dear PC brigade!

[Rob Houghton]

Neither do I, but being a man I'm not allowed to say it! Years of 'Facebook' training!

I also find it interesting that its acceptable for women to assume all the masculine variants - almost as if admitting that the male names are superior - so we never call both sexes 'actresses' etc.

Not sure how we got from Elfin Cottage to this, lol!

[Daisy]

Not sure how we got from Elfin Cottage to this, lol!

It was the word "Authoress" on the plaque on Elfin Cottage that started us off.

[Jack400]

Not as picturesque as Old Thatch, but if we all pitch in together, do you think we could buy it and turn it into our own Enid Blyton museum and Society clubroom?? I’ve got 86p in change to start us off with...

I'll chip in an old American cent, two farthings and a Noddy badge!

Then let us make a bid.

[KEVP]

A lot of words ending in "-ess" were actually invented by the feminists of that generation, who were very proud that women were entering more careers.

[Fiona1986]

It's nice to see the back of the house after seeing the front (and only trespassing a little to do so!). The garden's lovely, as is the back of the house, but the insides don't look like an awful lot has been done to them since Blyton's days!

I thought the "videoettes" might be more than just a slideshow-with-zoom-effect though.

Incidentally I don't think authoress/poetess/stewardess are necessary but I like actress for some reason. It's strange as we have singers, but Madonna is not a singeress, and there aren't sales assistantesses, or teacheresses. So why is it important to distinguish gender when it's an author or poet? Female poet works fine.

[Courtenay]

And we've never had doctoresses, even though enabling women to join the medical profession would have been one of the more significant feminist achievements of that era!

[pete9012S]

Very true - it was tried apparently:

During the 19th century, attempts to overlay Latin grammar rules onto English required the use of feminine endings in nouns ending with -or. This produced words like doctress and professoress and even lawyeress, all of which have fallen out of use; though waitress, stewardess, and actress are in modern use.

[Rob Houghton]

yes - interesting how we don't have teacheresses, or photographeresses, or farmeresses, or cleaneresses, or politicianesses.

[Courtenay]

Or Prime Ministeresses.

[Boatbuilder]

Shouldn't that be Prime Mini-stress? TM is giving us plenty of that!

[Rob Houghton]

I agree!