{"id":85433,"date":"2015-05-05T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2015-05-05T22:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=85433"},"modified":"2015-05-05T18:01:05","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T22:01:05","slug":"word-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Word Games"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_85453\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-85453\" class=\"wp-image-85453\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\" alt=\"1024px-Simeon_Solomon_-_A_Youth_Relating_Tales_to_Ladies_-_Google_Art_Project\" width=\"600\" height=\"393\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project-300x197.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-85453\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Simeon Solomon, <i>A Youth Relating Tales to Ladies<\/i>, 1870.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>My mother\u2019s loathing for the word <em>lady<\/em> occupies a special place in her pantheon of negativity.<\/p>\n<p>To be specific, she doesn\u2019t actually mind <em>lady<\/em> as a <em>word <\/em>or a title of the peerage<em>\u2014<\/em>as seen in, say, Lady Day*,<em> The Lady Vanishes<\/em>, or\u00a0<em>Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover<\/em>. It\u2019s when the word appears in lyrics that she puts her foot down. (And even then, there\u2019s a disclaimer: some lyrics are okay. \u201cLuck Be a Lady,\u201d \u201cThe Lady Is a Tramp\u201d\u2014these, among others, are acceptable.) <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>What she hates, specifically, is the use of <em>lady<\/em> as a synonym for <em>woman<\/em>, or, especially, for <em>girlfriend<\/em>. There is no easier way to rile her\u2014and she is very easily riled\u2014than to blast Styx\u2019s \u201cLady,\u201d Kenny Rogers\u2019s \u201cLady,\u201d the Commodores\u2019 \u201cLady,\u201d \u201cSentimental Lady,\u201d or even \u201cTiny Dancer.\u201d To her, the usages in these songs connote variously 1960s possessive hippie-speak and 1970s cheesiness, which she found, in turn, socially and aesthetically abhorrent.<\/p>\n<p>Her lip will curl with scorn; her eyes will narrow; a flush of rage will mount her cheeks. Often there is reference to a certain Berkeley commune she was kicked out of in 1969 for \u201chaving a bad attitude.\u201d My brother and I have taken unseemly pleasure over the years in cranking up \u201cShe\u2019s a Lady\u201d whenever it plays on the oldies station.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Oddly enough, \u201cLay Lady Lay\u201d\u2014a song that contains not only the L-word but another of her b\u00eates noire, the misuse of the transitive\u2014does not bother her. But then, it helps that in the case of most of those other songs, they are terrible.<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><small>*Not, mind you, the Rod Stewart song.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My mother\u2019s loathing for the word lady occupies a special place in her pantheon of negativity. To be specific, she doesn\u2019t actually mind lady as a word or a title of the peerage\u2014as seen in, say, Lady Day*, The Lady Vanishes, or\u00a0Lady Chatterley\u2019s Lover. It\u2019s when the word appears in lyrics that she puts her [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[14367,18014,18015,13106,7481,13487,2393],"class_list":["post-85433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-families","tag-ladies","tag-ladyship","tag-lyrics","tag-mothers","tag-songs","tag-words"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>\u201cLady\u201d and Its Discontents<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein on her mother\u2019s deeply felt revulsion for the word \u201clady.\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Word Games by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"May 5, 2015 \u2013 My mother\u2019s loathing for the word lady occupies a special place in her pantheon of negativity. To be specific, she doesn\u2019t actually mind lady as a word or\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-05T22:01:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"671\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Word Games\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-05T22:01:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\"},\"wordCount\":310,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"families\",\"ladies\",\"ladyship\",\"lyrics\",\"Mothers\",\"songs\",\"words\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Our Daily Correspondent\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\",\"name\":\"\u201cLady\u201d and Its Discontents\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-05T22:01:05+00:00\",\"description\":\"Sadie Stein on her mother\u2019s deeply felt revulsion for the word \u201clady.\u201d\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/1024px-simeon_solomon_-_a_youth_relating_tales_to_ladies_-_google_art_project.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/05\/word-games\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Word Games\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. 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