"Ladies and Gentlemen!..." Werent the Ladies Gentle?

You are a victim of a preconceived idea, friend : there are also some ladies who are dragons in nature.

Hi mtr Hmmmm....! I told you I have nothing much to do around these days and these things keep coming to me... And you are unsure too...

Hi topffer there are also some ladies who are dragons in nature I can understand "dragons" better these days!

Behave and mis behave. .. that is an interesting term...

Yes purple, I too have accepted that ladies are already taken as gentle and to avoid repetition they say 'ladies and gentleman'.

Hi pa I do agree with you - wrt dear Topffer. I guess most of the responses on Page #1 got misled by the title or read the title only. Though I do agree with some of those lines in that almost all women are gentle (otherwise Lord would not have given them the blessings to be "moms" or even sisters). As for misbehaving - well, today is the generation which does think and speak much of equality for both the genders and so if boys do misbehave girls too have their rights... reserved or nreserved

Now for the serious answer –English is not our native language and this does not belong to our motherland. Having established this, we know it is from abroad; we also know that we have a lot to thank the British for their good work as well as customs derived from there. We shall talk only about positive aspects here. There they had “Lords ‘ and “Ladies” and members belonging to such elite groups did attend parties[the poorer strata of society may obviously not have had such toasting speeches etc.., isn’t it/ --so, they must have addressed their gatherings with the above “Ladies and gentlemen[here this perhaps was treated as a common term for ,barons, earls, dukes, and what not”—[it is a guess]and their respective counterparts. How cumbersome would it have been to have a mile length address like “baronesses, duchesses, barons, dukes, earls, etc. etc…., etc. [And if it were a gathering hosting many people with such titles, then it would take half an hour to just deliver the list of addressees instead of going to the body of the speech isn’t it?].Imagine such an occasion thesids! We must have got this from the British, an effect of colonization in India.

Once again, the British were sticklers for formality .We have formal English and informal English [spoken English] where slang is permitted.Though this is only a speech their minds would have baulked at such abbreviations in a social gathering.This is also a guess.

Dear Kalav Thanks for returning back to provide something meaningful and logical. the availability of so many classes and their addressing sounds a quite logical reasoning to me. I would have been more at peace if it was only the simpler way - "Ladies and Gents!"

There is nothing wrong to get a beat from your didi I think one is due now as it is long time (1989)

Hi didi I am all alone and when there is nothing or no one to talk with... you know, basically I am a confused person and so to to some talk I hoped on to mylot with this thought!

ps: I had my last beating from the stick long back in 1989 at school. Maybe not getting any after that made me naughty

well men can really be barbaric - drink of the carton of milk... or put their finger in the cake batter... but then they can also be savage when provoked! I tried that with hubby, i provoked him and i got to see how mad he can get.

I do now need to learn some of those tricks from him... as I feel the kind of lifestyle and the simple one I live is getting duller and I need to find myself doing something new now

Hi jazel Most women are gentle. And I also feel that men too are gentle these days - may be because of the laws around or even the inner respect for the women... Men I think used to be the savage or barbaric in nature in ancient days when mankind was evolving but I doubt if the Ladies and Gentlemen thing was used / known those days

ohmygosh did someone say chocolate? yum,oh chocoman wow

see... it sounds weird so just let it be i guess chocoman related to something sweet huh?

Hi ifa " ladies and machoman " That surely leaves me out ... How about chocoman

Hi mylesnarvaez i don't think it's quite proper I agree with that. We all have been nourished and fed deep into our brains from our birth those standards. I dont disagree with saying Ladies and Gentlemen! What I am asking is why didnt they create Gentlemen and Ladies (okay that didnt work as Ladies First thing had happened). So why not "GentleLadies and Gentlemen" or even "Ladies and Gents"! Why did the men had to be suffixed with that word "gentle" or why the Ladies were to stay without it! I feel the discrimination was deeply embedded into the system right from the start.

Hi writers I too would preferred if they added up the Gentle for both or even used a better one which was more gender neutral - something like "hi People". Purple and Rajibda on lower boxes opine something that it was kind of avoiding the repetition of Gentle...

Thank you my brother. I am happy that I could put some logic into the discussion topic initiated by you.

Dear Rajibda I loved reading this view and response. I see this a better explanation and a better logical reasoning behind the phase now.

Hi Vandana But I guess when the phrase was coined, at that time - the "other variety" didnt exist - and there were some not gentle men around who could be - you know - hooligans. (Maoists, naxalites, Taliban, Al Quaeda, Lashkar e Toiba). - these are all the products of the 1900s or if you want, we can extend to 1800s I guess. but the phrase seems to be much older than these.

Hi cowboyofhell Of course, ladies is inclusive of the politeness of the word Gentle. I would believe it would have been much better if they were addressing like - Ladies and Gents instead of the Gentlemen as Gents does apply to all the Gents (males) unlike the usage of gentlemen which as suggested on Page 1 indicates a special class (social) of males - barons, knights , lords, dukes etc.

Hi viju Would they still listen The Lesbians, Gays and Transgenders were always uncared for in the past and it is only recently that some of the states (specially Tamil Nadu) included options for them on the Admission Forms of Colleges. A great development but still we are ages behind in accepting these special sections.

Hi thesid, Oh yeah.. if you call out, they will listen, but then there is no guarantee / warranty of listening to the rest of the speech / announcement/s... LOL Yes, agreed, we will take more time to digest these developments. Take care.

My thoughts are the same.

why did they say Ladies first? Probably it meant that the ladies should be above all men.

Exactly! (RASP)