On Sun, 7 Dec 1997 04:58:36 PST
Mark Smith <mymark@hotmail.com> wrote:
> There were a couple of places in the 1st book, "On Basilisk Station,"
> where David Weber seemed to want to try to use pronouns and honorifics
> in nontraditional ways, but later on this effort was abandoned and all
> men were he, all women were she, and titles such as Lord and Lady were
> gender-specific. But in the 6th book, "Honor Among Enemies," a woman is
> referred to as a "First Lord of the Admiralty." Are there any
> traditionalists on the list who think this should have been, "First Lady
> of the Admiralty?"
"First Lord of the Admiralty" is correct. First Lord is not a title,
but a post. "First Lady of the Admiralty" would, I think, be descriptive
of the first woman to hold the post. Personally, I have never had a
problem with gender-specified titles and posts. I couldn't care less
what sex the chairman is, so long as the chairman does a good job of
running the company. Of course, a woman is less likely to screw up as
chairman because she has probably had to prove herself much more than
her male rivals.
Makes me wonder, though. What will people call the husband of the first
female US president.
Trust me, I'm a doctor.
Catweasel <pvbuckland@bigfoot.com>
APATHY ERROR: Don't bother striking any key.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:40 PDT