‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ is offensive?

Here’s a funny story…well, it’s not actually a story but a directive by the British police force. The UK police have now been instructed to not address any members of the public they meet whilst on the beat or when they visit the police stations as ‘Sir’, ‘Miss’, ‘Madam’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘Mr’.  Nor are they allowed to use the words ‘lad’, ‘boy’, ‘girl’, ‘little girl’, ‘guys’ or any other words that will refer to one gender or the other. Even everyday words like ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘he’ and ‘she’ are no longer permitted. All policemen on the beat must use terms that refer to neither one gender nor the other when addressing the public.

Even the very traditional, and historic, House of Lords has not escaped this new era of tomfoolery. No one at The House of Lords is now allowed to address the public as ‘ladies and gentlemen’ because it is clearly gender specific.

It would appear that in certain institutions across the UK gender specific words and terms are gradually being outlawed so that they do not cause offence.

The odd thing is that the UK police commission merely advised its officers to use gender specific language. It told them what was not allowed but did not appear to provide alternative language in its place. The House of Lords, on the other hand, was quite specific and provided its 800 Lords and 600 staff with a new language guide. It would appear that innocent words that have been in existence since the English language came into being are now considered provocative. Words like ‘manmade’ and ‘manpower’ are now labelled offensive. So too are words like ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘him’, ‘her’ and ‘ladies and gentlemen’. When addressing the public during sittings these words have now been replaced with ‘one and all’, ‘colleagues’ and ‘folks’. My honest opinion? I think the use of these alternatives are very silly and the latter, ‘folks’, seems somewhat unbecoming of the language normally used in an institution like The House of Lords.

Remember, though, that the name ‘The House of Lords’ remains unchanged even though it refers to only the male gender. ‘The House of Ladies’ would obviously be the female counterpart but that does not exist for historical reasons. If the above terms are deemed offensive then what can be more offensive than ‘The House of Lords’? Why didn’t they rename it ‘The House of Colleagues’ or ‘The House of One and All’ or even ‘The House of Folks’? Because it sounds absurd. We should also note that when an individual is being knighted or given an OBE or MBE, they become ‘Sir’ if it’s a man and ‘Dame’ if it’s a lady’. Neither of these has changed and nor will it be, for historical reasons. Also, a queen or princess has her ‘ladies in waiting’ and this title also remains unchanged. If it were to be changed to something more neutral, in my opinion it would most definitely be internationally ridiculed.

  Now usually when a British policeman addresses you, he’ll say ‘Miss’ or ‘Sir, unless he knows you by name in which case he would use the prefix ‘Miss’, ‘Mrs’ or ‘Mr’ followed by your surname. The traditional greeting from the 50 to the 80s was ‘evening all’ if he saw a group of people on his beat and that is probably still okay since it encompasses everyone. But what if they are addressing an individual? What form of address would be acceptable without sounding rude or discourteous? Would it be ‘excuse me’, ‘hey you’ or ‘oy!’?

But here’s another odd event that happened in the UK involving the renowned Harry Potter author, JK Rowling. She booked a private dining room to host a ladies only event only to be asked by the person taking the booking, ‘No men?’ This is completely nuts and, to be honest, the question is also very out of order.  For decades people from both sexes have been booking male or female only events and, as far as I am aware, no one has ever been asked if the other gender will be present. I’m referring to baby showers, bridal showers, stag nights, hen parties, and even ‘a girls’ night out’ is very popular.

The thing to ask is if words that pertain to the laws of nature are gradually replaced with words that make little or no sense, and I’m not referring to words like chairman, manpower or manmade, how will people communicate with each other without causing confusion? Taking away words like ‘he’, ‘she’, ‘man’, ‘woman, ‘boy’, ‘girl’, etc., makes communication, in some circumstances, more difficult than it needs to be.

Many critics of these incessant changes have quipped why people are jumping through hoops to hack the English language to bits just to satisfy a minuscule percentage of the world’s population. As one older gentleman remarked, ‘I’m 70 years old. If a policeman does not call me ‘Sir’ when addressing me, I will ignore him even if it means I’m arrested.’