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Choice of descriptions

While I’m not personally concerned about titles (Letters, June 15), and prefer always to be called by my Christian name, the distinction in my childhood was between ‘‘lady’’ and ‘‘woman’’.

My mother impressed on me in the early 1940s that a lady was either a person with a title, or someone whose admirable life and character generated particular respect; the rest of us were women. (Now I’m sure that the tea-lady may well be a lady by her definition.)

But I’ve had a lifetime reluctance to assume that all women are comfortable with this distinction, and would always prefer to say, for instance, ‘‘The customer who’s just left’’ rather than ‘‘The woman who’s just left’’.

And I have an inexplicable problem in choosing to say to a child either ‘‘The lady over there will tell you where the children’s books are’’ or ‘‘The woman over there . . .’’

Maybe it’s a generational problem. Jenny Chisholm, Wilton

Opinion | Letters

en-nz

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-18T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281852941523631

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