Date: Sun, 16 Jul 1995 07:32:48 PDT From: tom creswell Subject: Re: Woman/Lady For what Virginia McDavid and I found to be the situation circa 1985, when we were writing usage notes and synonymies for the Random House Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged. See the Usage Paragraph sv _lady_ and the Usage Paragraph and Synonymy sv _woman_ and _-woman_. Upon re-reading, they seem to accurately define the present situation with the two terms. Political correctness aside, the general current practice seems to be as described. Tom Creswell ---------------Original Message--------------- Weren't we discussing the differences between phrases like "lady doctor" and "woman doctor" a while back? (If it was somewhere else, well, it *should* have been here, too.) Anyway, I was watching the Boston Red Sox/Texas Rangers (baseball) game tonight, with Brent Mussberger and Joe Torre doing the commentary. As the score got out of hand, the announcers started commenting (favorably) on the increasing number of women in front office and public positions. At one point, Torre noted that Boston has the first "lady p/a announcer" and the first "lady assistant general manager". Mussberger immediately cut in, saying that you had to say "woman p/a announcer", etc. Afterwards, he made a crack about PC, but is did seem as if his correction was based on it 'sounding wrong' to say "lady p/a announcer", and the PC came out of trying to articulate *why* it sounded wrong. PS for baseball fans: the score was *objectively* getting out of hand; no partisanship intended. PS for non-baseball fans: Mussberger is an experienced sportscaster and covers a variety of sports; Torre is an ex-player, ex-manager, though he has been involved in specifically baseball broadcasting between stints as a manager. Alice Faber faber[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]haskins.yale.edu ----------End of Original Message----------