Judges – legendary for their inability to express themselves articulately – all that effing and blinding – have at last been given guidelines on how not to offend people.
So now they must refer to persons of a female persuasion as “women” because the word “lady” is impolite and may cause offence.
Well, I’d much rather be referred to as “a lady” than “a woman” any day. It depends on the context – if you’re talking about someone in their presence, then “this lady said ..” is more courteous than “this woman said …”, which is actually quite rude.
A “postwoman” is now a “postal operative” (which is not the same thing – the entire case might hang on the fact that someone delivers letters rather than spends their life behind a counter being pathologically anti-social or vice versa). What’s wrong with “lady postman”?
Lady Postman sounds like either a tortology or an oxymoron. I’d settle for Post Delivery Person. I see nothing impolite about the word “lady” but I would have to say that where as all ladies are women, not all women are ladies.
I’m not too keen on the word “chair” or “chair person”. I see no harm at all in suffixing the word with the appropriate gender.
“The Postal Delivery Person Always Rings Twice”, “Oh Mr Postal Delivery Person”, “Postal Delivery Person Pat”. I think not.