July 14, 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen

Rakesh wants to know why when beginning a speech, people do not start with "Gentle ladies and Gentle men" and instead say "Ladies and Gentlemen"?

116 comments:

Vrijilesh Rai said...

No use asking someone to be what they can never be!

rayshma said...

coz ladies are "inherently" gentle. so it's redundant to say "gentle ladies"
if they're not, my guess is that they're referred to as women... or girls...

Keshi said...

Cos Ladies r by default GENTLE. Men always need an adjective like that to stroke their ego? or else they wont listen to the speech.

lol!

Keshi.

Rahul... in City of Dreamz said...

Well i guess because ladies are considered gentle by default... but of course this line was coined years ago ;)

Good News Bearer said...

Maybe ladies are supposed to be gentle by default :)

Solitaire said...

@ Vrij,

Are you saying women can never be gentle?

WOW!! Now you are asking for it.

I think the women here might attack you.

Solitaire said...

Guess everyone concurs!

Ashish said...

its sarcastic!! for both!!

Ankur said...

hehe...

wel.. i feel ki using gentle man hi galat hai..

hona chaiye...
Ladies and Gents... :P

but yeh bahut low class sound karta hai... and ladkiyon ko gentle bolne ka fayda nahi!! :P

coz its not possible, chit chat band hona toh hai nai!! :P
hehe

Cheers!! ;)

The Furobiker said...

i second vrij

SMM said...

To remind the men to be gentle :P

Sriram said...

a bit of sarcasm is great as an opening line :) "gentle"men ha

humbl devil said...

well, it's a given that the gals are gentle by virtue of their gender... :D

but, then you do come across some xenas(aka. the warrior princess...heheheh)

Keshi said...

Vrij r u saying grisly tough hairy men r GENTLER than soft delicate sweet women?

Something is very wrong there!

Keshi.

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

may be becoz gals will feel it insulting calling them gentle :P

and moreover they won't even recognize that they were addressed if the person say gentle ladies :P
khikhikhi

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

u don believe it...

i m givin n eggjampal :P

if a man is said to be gentle in bed..he is the best in bed..

and if u say a gal that she is so gentle in bed ..she will defn not like it :P

Rakesh said...

thank you solitaire..please answer the Q on behalf of me....thanks once again...:D

Solitaire said...

@ Rakesh,

You are not going to respond to people?

AmitL said...

Whoever was inventing the word'gentleman', obviously forgot to add the prefix before lady.

Keshi said...

Also mebbe cos Ladies r always Ladies and Gentlemen r mostly GENITAL-MEN?

that was for Vrij. LOL!


Keshi.

Karthik S said...

Its pretty obivious....
First they call ladies...and GENTLE men... dont you see the sarcacism in that stressed phrase??

Rakesh said...

right vrij.

rayshma & Keshi....people apprecaite men by telling gentle men but mostly ladies are arrogant..what is there to appreciate..:D

rahul..why u r guessing?it means u do not beleive..:D

GNB..may be nothing to tell abt. ladies.

Ashish...u mean people start the speech to deride others.

ankur..kya yaar..hamesa ladkiyo ke favour m kyo..:D

Keshi said...

**people apprecaite men by telling gentle men but mostly ladies are arrogant..what is there to appreciate


o really Rakesh? WOW I didnt know men were that prejudiced.


Mebbe it should

'Ladies and Prejudiced Men'

from now on :)


Keshi.

D said...

Because ladies is a term used for gentle women and not just any woman!

Keshi said...

**mebbe it should BE

I mean!


hahaha D good one!


Keshi.

Rakesh said...

keshi..these r only arguments not truth..so u can play with that...:D

Ankur said...

@Rakesh

oye...

yeh nahi padha??

**but yeh bahut low class sound karta hai... and ladkiyon ko gentle bolne ka fayda nahi!! :P

coz its not possible, chit chat band hona toh hai nai!! :P
hehe

wake up dood!! :P :P
heheh

Cheers!! !;)

Keshi said...

yeah Im playing alrite Rakesh. lol!

Keshi.

Sweetstickychewy said...

Thats cause a woman always gets the lee-way and respect first before a man.

Take for example.. when a man brings a lady out for a date. He opens the door for her first before himself. Gets her seated first. Makes sure she is settled first. before he rest his ass on to sit.

That to me feels like da most logical explanation where the fairer sex gets the greeting and respect first. Than the man after her. Its a lady mind ya! We get treated better when its a man starting a greeting.lol.

Cheerios!

Solitaire said...

@ Rayshma,

Don't you think women and girls are gentle too? I refer the non-gentle women as Hidimba!

Solitaire said...

@ Keshi,

And now I guess its "expected". I guess the day they do not hear it, they will be "disappointed". ;)

Solitaire said...

@ Rahul,

So are you saying that its not valid anymore?

Solitaire said...

@ Good news,

Maybe?

Solitaire said...

@ Ashish,

Ah ha!

Solitaire said...

@ Ankur,

Ladies and Gents sunkar mujhe restroom yaad aata hai!! Isn't that what is is written on restroom doors in India?

Solitaire said...

@ Abhishek,

Then be ready to be attacked!

Solitaire said...

@ Smm,

Ya I guess we need more of those reminders.

Solitaire said...

@ Sriram,

Wow a man saying that! Amazing!
What do you have to say about what Vrij said?

Solitaire said...

@ Humble,

Who knows..maybe they are gentle too!
Never judge a book by its cover.

Ankur said...

hahah...
sahi kaha Sol... aisa hi hota hai!! :P

but believe me, not taking ur side, i have never understood the glorification of gents to Gentlemen!! !:P

Keshi said...

haha good one Sol!

Lets just say Ladies and AMen!

;-)
Keshi.

Keshi said...

Devil Im a Xena oyeasss! ;-)

Keshi.

Solitaire said...

@ Daydreamer,

Why would being called gentle be an insult??????

Solitaire said...

@ AmitL,

Is that good or bad?

Solitaire said...

@ Karthik,

I do now. And you do. But do the others?

Solitaire said...

@ Rakesh,

Do you plan on marrying an arrogant woman or a humble man?

Solitaire said...

@ D,

Right!! Do you know of any woman who is not gentle? I know of one. When I had a ligament tear in my hand and I told her to put lotion on my arm, I thought my arm would fall off.

Solitaire said...

@ Sweetsticky

Thanks!!
That logic makes sense. But can you explain why the word gentle is not used for women but only for men?

Solitaire said...

@ Keshi,

How about "Ladies and Demen (demon)"?

Keshi said...

lolz Sol good one!

How abt



Ladies And SeMen!



hahahahaha!


Keshi.

Keshi said...

And

Ladies and OMen

Ladies and AbdoMen


Keshi.

Rakesh said...

solitaire...if i will marr...i will change arrogant lady to gentle woman..:D

Rakesh said...

Abhisekh..did not get

Smm...men r already gentle no need to remind..:D

Sriram..yes

Humbl..we r talking abt. ladies not gals..:D

The daydreamer..great thought

Amitl..may be..who knows

Karthik....why u r stressing on gentle...:D

Rakesh said...

D..may be u r right..i also think so..but not sure.

Ankur..ladkiyo kya bone se phida hai..:D

Sweetstickychewy..men only tell ladies first not women..so what it means men are gentle..men give more respect to others as compare to ladies

joie de vivre said...

hehe gentle ladies sounds funny!!
well gentle is a very small wrd to define gentleness of lady.

Unknown said...

Thats y...
thats y i always say...
I always say...

always use...
"Bhaiyon aur unke behenon"

instead of Ladij-va & Gentalmen-va...

SMM said...

Hey AmitL, the term used to be "gentle ladies" in the 17th - 18th centuries. Somewhere along th line "gentle" got dropped and it became "ladies"

Urv said...

Hmmm.. Coz men are not as strong at heart as women are..

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

sneha

becoz if u r not wat u r being called ..it is insulting :P

like if u call a slim lady ..motyyy :P
how will she like it..or may be

u say a moti lady...tumhari patli kamar pe vaari jawa...dekho fir kaise daudayegi :P


lol

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

@sweetystickchew

duffer u said it all wrong..u shud be interpreting it like


men do those things so they are well mannered and thus called gentleman....and woman receive those so they are jus ladies... :P

Vishesh said...

hmm...i wonder...i am going to read the answers :D

Vaudevillian said...

Its a term formed in the 14th century by rich, pompous, noblemen in their interest.

The most common response would be that ladies are gentle anyway. If you say they aren't, then you'll come under attack from gentle ladies.
There are exceptions ofcourse, in both the genders. Man probably lost all hope of reaching a definite conclusion, and left it that way.

One could only dream of answering these sort of questions, coming to a perfect reasoning is harder than you could ever imagine;
even Einstein gave up.

Rho Tau GWIS said...

LOL @ Keshi's comments!!!
Cute AND Clever!!

Aneesh said...

'coz saying something in public, that's impossible to happen, should be avoided.

ceedy said...

Calling a lady GENTLE is DETRIMENTAL to ones existence as if you forget to call her GENTLE the second time around, she will be all SENTIMENTAL and drive you up the wall and deem you MENTAL and the third time you could be hit my her SANDLE...and at this point now she no longer is GENTLE...

RADhika said...

because ladies are considered to be gentle ;)

Sriram said...

@sol: yeah --> "sweeeeet", "cute!", "gentle" and "soft" is ladies-talk!

Anonymous said...

ladies can be gentle ? i dont think so. No offence meant buddy :)

Raghu Iyer said...

"ladies are gentle!
men are hard!"

lukkydivz said...

lol i loved rayshma's answer :P

Mysterious Mia said...

ladies r always gentle, just that men have to be remined to be gentle

Keshi said...

CG atleass 1 'Lady' found the humor in my comments ;-)


The oh-so-GENTLE men seem to be sus on that. Not very gentle LOL!


Keshi.

aneri_masi said...

because they want to address ALL the ladies, and only the nicer, gentler men.

But look what this has caused! Men are now being referred to as "Gents" :O

aneri_masi said...

ankur, what has chit-chat got to do with being gentle?

and tum to yaar ladkiyon se bhi zyaada bolte ho. so then what ARE you trying to say?

**Totally confused**

Sol, exactly what i thought! ladies toilets, jhents toilets, LOL

Vrijilesh Rai said...

@ Sneha

Apologies for being late.

I still maintain that its futile to ask women to be gentle! You know what.. I'm talking from experience. I live with a fiery arian tigress, u see....


@ Day Dreamer

I like ur eggjample of being gentle in bed ;)


@ Keshi

What makes u think that the grissly hairy variety of Homo sapiens cannot be gentle? Wasnt the female sex also very hairy and grissly during the Neanderthal age?

--

I guess probably the original connotation was.. "Ladies, be gentle with Men."

Someone must have heard it wrong and changed it to what we hear these days!!


@ ceedy

Loved ur explanation !!

kyamaloom said...

Because they want MEN to remain 'gentle'. (Read with the most pervert mind.)

Solitaire said...

Funny Keshi!

Solitaire said...

@ Sutta,

OK! Did...
But is my highest level of pervert the same as yours?

Solitaire said...

@ Vrij,

But that's generalization! I am sure Capricornian women are very gentle.

Solitaire said...

@ Aneri,

Hahah! But do they not-so-gentle men get it? Guess not!

Solitaire said...

@ Princess,

Correct!

Solitaire said...

@ Lukky,

Kya baat hai? Smiling a lot today!?

Solitaire said...

@ Phantom,

"HARD"??????????????????????
How should we interpret it?

Solitaire said...

@ Buzz,

Then what are ladies according to you?

Solitaire said...

@ Sriram,

Ladies talk from a "gents"?

Solitaire said...

@ Radhika,

Some men here disagree....

Solitaire said...

@ Ceedy,

So what do you call women instead? Or you don't call them anything at all?

Solitaire said...

@ Aneesh,

Impossible kyonnnnn?
Any real life experiences??

Solitaire said...

@ Metrosexual,

Then we should change it all in the 21st century, don't you think?

Solitaire said...

@ Vishesh,

Did you read? Any answers?

Solitaire said...

@ Daydreamer,

I understand! How do you think I felt when Vrij called me psychic and Ankur called me Shrek!?

ceedy said...

how does your question relate to my comment and the original question?

Solitaire said...

@ Urv,

Accha answer hai...!

Solitaire said...

@ Smm,

Reallyyyyyyyyy? Got any evidence?

Solitaire said...

@ Iceman,

Heheheheheheh!!!

Solitaire said...

@ Joie,

But some men think that women are not gentle at all!!

Solitaire said...

@ Ceedy,

Read it again. You might just get it.

ceedy said...

Got it.

But I dont intend to open a shoe store anytime soon - specially when they could be just belonging to one foot

Keshi said...

Vrij u said:


**No use asking someone to be what they can never be!


NEVER BE? And then u said:



**What makes u think that the grissly hairy variety of Homo sapiens cannot be gentle? Wasnt the female sex also very hairy and grissly during the Neanderthal age?


They were yes...but does that mean they can NEVER BE gentle, as u said before?



Keshi.

Toon Indian said...

obvious..coz..gentle ladies is an oxymoron :P!!!!

Solitaire said...

@ Ceedy

I read and re-read your comment but still do not get it.

Solitaire said...

@ Rahul,

So if women are not gentle, what are they?

Rakesh said...

Urv..there is no relation b/w gentleness and strong.

joiedevivre said...then whats that strong word

vishesh...ohh.

Metrosexual Monk said... einstein bahut bewkuf(foolish) tha....

Rakesh said...

Aneesh..ya

Ceedy..now everrything is clear..good

RADhika..ya let us consider ladies r gentle...:D

Buzz..yup

Phantom..is it...ladies r soft and men r hard..:D

Lukkydivz..:D

Princessmia..always can not be posiible yaar..there must be some few?..:D

carolinagal..:D

Aneri_masi:you mean gentle comes from gents..:D

Sutaa..it menas u should always remind for what u shuld be.

Rahul..hmm

♥ÐÅyÐяєÅмє®♥ said...

u r an exception sneha...

u kno exception proves the rule :P

so gals r nt gentle :P

Aneesh said...

For certain things, you don't need real life experiences, right??

Toon Indian said...

ladies are not gentle ..they are more devious than any man can be..they just hide that with a cloak of smile,and their soft voice!

Anonymous said...

ladies are like gentle... they can even bitch in low whispers...men sumtimes need to be reminded of the fact to be gentle... is alll

ceedy said...

@solitaire

if you did not get it - chances are I did not get it right in the first place....so nevermind

Stupidosaur said...

Ah I have just read half the comments yet. No time for more.
Based on what I read..

Keshi said
"Gentlemen r mostly GENITAL-MEN?"
As some of you who may have been reading my blogs might know, I have god wierd sound feedback circuits in my brain.
So I had a very similar thought, a few years ago, without any relation to this post!

Ankur said
"i have never understood the glorification of gents to Gentlemen!! !:P"

I dont know what ankur means by that. Once there were Neanderthal Men. Then some of them became men. Some of the Men learnt to talk. So they called each other men. Then some of the Men became Gentle. So they became Gentlemen. Then some men became lazy and for them the Gentlemen became Gents.

So you see Ankur, Gentlemen is the basic word. Gents was invented so that the instruction plates or painted signs on Toilets would be Short and hence Cheap (Nothing to do with Short and Sweet)

@Keshi again,
It would be unfair to pair up a Lady with all the *men you are talking about. So we would better gather

MaLadies and *men and address their gattherings as such.

Solitaire said...

YAY!! Stupid is back! Now I will be laughing a lot!

Raghu Iyer said...

hard may mean the opposite of gentle...ooohhhh....don't substitute the word "Gentle"men to "fragile"men...ha ha ha...

well, the word gentle used to tame the angry ones to cool them off...

Stupidosaur said...

YAY! Sol Yayed me!

Anonymous said...

i like Vrij's answer :D

but then i loveeeeee Keshi's answer better... hehehhee!

Sweetstickychewy said...

to rub their ego alittle? make them feel better abt themselves? whoops!

mirage said...

Hi solitaire,

Ladies r always gentle,it will be too much to add an adverb to ladies.
we don't use lovely babies ,cos babies r lovely.we don't say Oh good God!,cos we know God is good ALWAYS!

:))))Good question rajesh