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QaR
November 2008 
The "ess" must go!
Posted on Sep 28th, 2007
by 
Islandman
Islandman
She's a beautiful actress. She could make me cry, and then, the most difficult of acting skills, make me dry my own tears.
Actress or actor?
How come she's an actress, but her cousin, who works at Jackson Memorial Hospital, isn't a doctoress? I have a friend from the IRS and she's certainly not an auditoress.
I hate poetess and authoress as much as I hate actress. These gender definitive words originated at a time when women did not write, when men put on dresses to play women's roles. We never had any use for the word doctoress because female doctors were virtually an unknown species in the 19th Century. Madame Curie, surely, should have been Dr. Curie! Times have changed in all the professions. The suffix is dropped everywhere. Everywhere, except in the arts, which is supposed to be progressive. How come?
Actress or actor?
How come she's an actress, but her cousin, who works at Jackson Memorial Hospital, isn't a doctoress? I have a friend from the IRS and she's certainly not an auditoress.
I hate poetess and authoress as much as I hate actress. These gender definitive words originated at a time when women did not write, when men put on dresses to play women's roles. We never had any use for the word doctoress because female doctors were virtually an unknown species in the 19th Century. Madame Curie, surely, should have been Dr. Curie! Times have changed in all the professions. The suffix is dropped everywhere. Everywhere, except in the arts, which is supposed to be progressive. How come?
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