Feb 22, 2019 · The plural possessive is "ladies'." "Lady" is singular, so if you were referring solely to one woman's shoes, it would be "the lady's shoes." As for your second question, I'm assuming you're referring to a group of women in your salutation of them, so it would be "Good morning, ladies." And as you're addressing them directly, the comma preceding "ladies" is necessary. Jul 13, 2019 · Even when Lady Macbeth says: "And take my milk for gall", that would definitely support the literal humorism theory, but I still don't understand how we get from milk to blood (too much of the blood humor supposedly being the problem). Jul 19, 2023 · Idiomatically, it is gentleman. Lady comes from an Old English compound noun meaning roughly "loaf kneader," whereas lord comes from a compound noun meaning "loaf keeper" or "loaf protector." The etymological counterpart of gentleman, which is indeed gentlewoman, is used infrequently these days, usually in historical or quasi-historical contexts. Jun 2, 2023 · I tried searching Google Ngram Viewer for "Look lady" and "Listen lady", both capitalized so as to occur at the start of a sentence, with the hope that these ngrams would reflect the usage of "lady" in a derogatory/dismissive sense. It seems to have come into usage around 1950, and really took off in the late 1990s. Sep 22, 2011 · Yes, milady comes from "my lady". Milady (from my lady) is an English term of address to a noble woman. It is the female form of milord. And here's some background on milord: In the nineteenth century, milord (also milor) (pronounced "mee-lor") was well-known as a word which continental Europeans (especially French) whose jobs often brought them into contact with travellers (innkeepers, guides Ladies is the plural form of lady, so the apostrophe goes to the right - ladies'. If you are wondering why we don't write ladies's, it is because ladies is one of the exceptions, along with girls', parents', players', weeks' and even Klingons' It can

get a bit niggly with names too. Aristophanes' plays, but Jesus's miracles and (usually) James Oct 10, 2018 · The "fat lady" is the valkyrie Brünnhilde, who is traditionally presented as a very buxom lady with horned helmet, spear and round shield (although Amalie Materna played Brünnhilde during Wagner's lifetime (1876) with a winged helmet). May 8, 2024 · Some websites have a different version: 23 and me punctuates it "lady, wife, mistress of a household". Both that and the OP's link reference Dictionary of American Family Names, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 2022, which should be your first port of call for accurate details and more information. Jul 4, 2017 · How did "lady" and "ladies" come to differ in conveying degree of respect? Does calling to a strange woman "Hey, lady!" sound angry? The takeaway from those is that you should generally avoid using the singular "lady" as a direct form of address to a person herself, as it's likely to sound confrontational. There may be some exceptions For work-place specific gender-neutral politically-correct terms refer to the answer by @third-news. Otherwise, as Elliot Frisch has suggested, lady is the term you want. But in my opinion, if you're talking about clients of yours, be gender neutral. Lady can have negative implications in this setting because it is often used in a negative fashion, e.g. That lady wouldn't stop talking about