h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It depends on her hair colour and marital status too.
Daily Mail
"Blonde wife of..."
Mirror
"The 17 year old brunette..."
Sun
"Curvaceous, 19 year old, redhead...

Ah, right, you see I was talking the news media, not comics.

Ictoan: I think it may be one of feminism's minor successes. We fought so hard against being labelled "girl" even in our late twenties that it is now unPC to call a woman of marriagable age (ie 16+) anything other than woman, and the term "maid" seems to have disappeared altogether, even as a domestic servant

Wand'rin Star: Interesting. The definition of a woman then is any female who as attained or exceeded the age of consent, i.e. it is legal for men to have sex with her. That is the single defining characteristic of being a woman, whereas being a man is more defined by ones ability to support and protect oneself and ones dependants, being a man is still shrouded in the cloak of bravado and machismo. Ie being a woman defines what you are, being a man defines what you are capable of maybe?

Or am I simplifying things too much, 'cos it doesn't seem to be much of a victory for feminism. Although it is a damn site better than what went before!

Hope that doesn;t sound wrong, I am asking and musing, not having a go at anyone or anything!

...the situation here in Germany is even more ridiculous. In order not to remind them of their being unclaimed females even 16year old apprentices are being addressed as "Frau" instead of "Fräulein", which is the proper form for a yet unmarried lady.
I b****y hate my language being corrupted by imported fads like "Political Correctness" and I can only hope British English will weather it out and remain the wonderful language it is.


Pit

I would never use the term 'woman' for a 17-year-old girl.

It is something I have thought about over the last ten years, more so in my early twenties when it mattered more it must be admitted! But when refering to a female in her late teens or early twenties, somehow 'woman' seems too mature and old, girl is right out, lady has pretentious connotations. I used to plump for 'lass' as it seemed generally acceptable and not too offensive to those concerned.

Hmmm...means you might get a bashing from some bigot trout. As precautionary measure, when talking about a female my opposite doesn´t know I use "lady" or if <20 "young lady" - luckily I´m old enough for this to be accepted as chivalry rather than dodging the bullet.

my post was meant for Gnomon

I don't even refer to my giggly students as girls. You're a braver man than I am Gunga Gnomon. And I've had running battles with the male students to stop them referring to themselves as "boys". (When you think of the outrage that their fathers and grandfathers felt at being so addressed!)
I conducted my last grammar lesson of the semester last night and, because it WAS the last lesson, skated over the topic of punctuation - mostly commas,but also glancing at the dreaded apostrophe. My family name (as you may remember) is Jones and I subscribe to the caste that writes of something belonging to the family as Jones'.(We dealt with this somewhere in the backlog). This morning one of that class handed in his 'corrections' to me - addressed "Dear Jone's". TGI end of semester!

I find some youngsters use "boss" as a reference to male adults. This makes me squirm as it seems so servile.

I remember as young apprentice being called "sir" by the internal mailman (who was in his 50s) I was about 18. I really hated it and got someone to have a word. The bloke called everyone sir and it had no overtones but I found it so uncomfortable that I couldn't let it go.

Star - youngster´s who dont even get their apostrophe´s right ought to be caned. (Oh my, doesn´t that look half ugly)

Vestboy - in every classless society that´s a problem. Customs demanding tugging your forelock to the Laird of the Manor and kicking the rabble out of the way, makes choosing the correct form of address much easier. I find this even more difficult when a superior in my job is ~half my age.
Pit

Pit_Hinder, purely out of curiosity, how, and why!, are you using the close single quote? Is it the correct form to use, and I am just lazy using ', or are you on a different keyboard language or something?

Ictoan,
sorry, you lost me there. "Close single quote"? My English is sort of a navigation by instinct thing, so grammatical terms are an enigma.

Please enlighten me.
Pit

hardly a grammatical term from me! I'm an enthusiastic amateur and that's it!

What I meant was, for example, you wrote
"- youngster´s "
Whereas I would write

"- youngster's "

so you can see the apostrophe used is different, and I was wondering why?
Especially as I seem unable to find said symbol on my keyboard, ` is closest, but the wrong way around.

That whole thing was my way to show how many mistakes can be crammed into so short a sentence, anyway.
I use a qwertz keyboard, German type... ´ and ` are on the same key.
Pit

' is the lower case @ on a British layout keyboard (middle alpha row, next key to end right hand side - ignoring the return key)
` is lower case ¬ (left hand end of numeric row).

indeed, but what is ´ ?
I know word uses it automatically if you tell it to, and it works it out itself.

Thanks for the explanation Pit!

Are you just showing off?
*Stares blanky at keyboard looking for ´ - which I cut and pasted from previous post*

They could not sink a ship, but they could blow it off course so it wouldn´t reach home..."weary fortnights, nine times nine / shall he dwindle, peak, and pine" - hey, let´s get back to discussing proper Limey English!