Heard on The Jud es: "bartend(e)ress"

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

No doubt "chairess" never made the grade because it sounds dangerously like 
"choress" ('woman who does chores') or "charess" ('woman who burns toast'). In 
the end, all the problems of the world are surely related in some way to 
merger of nonhigh back vowels in America.


In a message dated 1/25/09 1:25:51 PM, Berson at ATT.NET writes:


> At 1/25/2009 01:08 PM, RonButters at AOL.COM wrote:
> >"Headmaster" is not a word I use commonly, and I am not sure how many women
> >still call themselves "Headmistresses," but I would expect it is a 
> shrinking
> >number, given the sexual connotations of "mistress". Of course, there are
> >portions of modern culture for which both both "headmaster" and
> >"headmistress" sound
> >primarily like porn-film titles.
> 
> There is "head of school".  (There is also "chair" for "chairman" or
> "chairwoman".)
> 
> Joel
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> 
> 




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