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Yesterday morning, out in the hallway of the hotel, a couple of maids were talking loudly back and forth. This morning, from behind my closed door, I again heard loud voices, one of which was male. That got me to wondering--is there a male counterpart for maid?
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in "Upstairs, Downstairs" the male servants were footmen. a valet is a man's man.
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And I guess nowadays both sexes would be referred to as housekeepers (cf 'flight attendants' or 'letter carriers').
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Footmen clean houses? I guess the real point of my post was: ARE there men who clean buildings for a living? (I'm assuming that the male voice I heard was either a customer or a maintenance...man (speaking of stereotypes). Housekeeper would indeed cover both; but for the life of me, I could not think of a single instance that I had ever read about or heard of where hired housecleaning service was performed by a male. Certainly I can't think of a word that, in the way we know instantly what a maid does, would mean the same work but done by a man. Come to think of it, I've never known much about what a footman does other than help people in and out of carriages.
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where hired housecleaning service was performed by a male
You used to could say the same thing about stewardesses
or nurses. The former needed a name change.
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Pooh-Bah
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We used to have a maid service in New Zealand where the usual term is "home help". The last one we had was a solo father. He was brilliant. Still called him the "home help", though.
- Pfranz
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Re:Footmen clean houses?
Footmen started in ancient rome--where superstition had it to be bad luck to cross the threshold with your left foot...
(i think the superstition persisted, since we still have the expressions--starting off on the right foot and Putting your best foot forward and others)
the rich had servants (slaves)who opened the door for guests, and watched there feet..
when not doing that, i am sure they found other work for them to do. but the term footman remained-- and in Upstairs, Downstairs, one of the things the footman did was open the door, and usher guests into the house...
Re:ARE there men who clean buildings for a living?
maintenance..(men) are usually considered more skilled.. and are paid slightly higher wages.. it still very sexist. most maids/ and maintenance men are paid very low wages...by the time the maid have enough english and knowledge to know that they could be getting more as maintenance men, they have enough skills to move onto jobs that pay better -- the lowest level of maintenance man is a porter--who is often required to sweep and mop in public areas.
some will say that maintenance men do heavier work, but they obviously are the same people who have never turn a matress.. something maids are expected to do. (sometimes in pairs.. but who cares, turn a matress is heavy work.)
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addict
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You used to could say the same thing about stewardesses or nurses. The former needed a name change.
I have it on good authority, from a colleague who had some part of his medical training in the Phillipines, that, in a majority of missionary hospitals there, female nurses are called, 'Sisters' and the male nurses are, 'Brothers'.
And yes Jackie, it is indeed hard to conjure up a male version of a maid. It seems to me, that the closest term that could apply to both sexes, is as mentioned above, servant. I personally, hate that word; it is to do with all its connotations, I suppose. I have read of male servants or man-servants, but don't know of one specific word.
Housekeeper is somewhat more managerial isn't it? It isn't quite the nuts and bolts job of a maid. The male version would be a butler, I suppose. Which reminds me of a wonderful film, 'The remains of the day'. Marvellous film. The book is an engrossing read too.
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missionary hospitals…'Sisters'…'Brothers'.
Sounds like medically trained nuns and monks(?) retaining their non-nurse titles.
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RE: missionary hospitals…'Sisters'…'Brothers'.
Sounds like medically trained nuns and monks(?) retaining their non-nurse titles.
Could be... but in UK, nurses are so called Sister-- or they were. just as medical doctors and surgens are called mister.. (Mr. not Dr. as they are in US)
but most everyone knows the proper initals, tacked at the end of a name that mean Member of Royal College of Surgens, (yeah, i could have looked it up...but so can you)--something akin to US "board certified"-- where as in US, a goodly percent have no idea what board certified is.
a recent article about health care addressed nursing issues. some hospitals no longer identify Registered Nurses as R.N.'s, and many patients in hospitals are "treated" by health care aides with 4 to 6 weeks of training..
patients might call for a nurse, and get an aid, instead.
(fine of you just need the bedpan, but not so good if your i.v. is coming loose.)
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No, Helen. Medical doctors are called Doctor, but surgeons are called Mister. Dates back to the days when surgery was a side-job for barbers but now has become a piece of oneupmanship. A surgeon would be quite miffed if somebody downgraded him by calling him Doctor.
I'm not sure of the exact details, but I think the nursing positions in a hospital used to be nurse, sister (in charge of the nurses in a ward) and matron (chief nurse for the whole hospital).
Bingley
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What about janitor? Janitors do many of the same jobs as housekeeping staff, only normally they don't do beds. I suspect they make more than housekeeping staff as well.
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Pooh-Bah
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Over here, the janitor is called the "caretaker" - but this is only for public buildings or blocks of flats (apartments to you USns)
In the (good?) old days, men-servants in big houses were NOT called upon to clean and sweep the rooms. Cleaning boots and the cutlery was the job of a boy, part of his training in domestic srvice, from which lowly position he might seek to rise to footman then valet or butler
However, in these modern times there are plenty of cases over here where men do household cleaning, both in the domestic sphere - especially as contract cleaners - and in the hotel trade. They are still very much in the minority, but.
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men do household cleaning, both in the domestic sphere - especially as contract cleaners - and in the hotel trade.
Whoa--I am so glad to know that! Thank you. Possibly there are some here in the U.S., then, too. There is hope yet! <eg>
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>both sexes would be referred to as housekeepers
..or domatologists. <g>
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That acknowledged, I have a question:
How do y'all "feel" the difference between the words caretaker and caregiver?
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I don't get tsuwm's pun, Missus Asp. Domatologist appears to be bona fide--in two online dictionaries. (But if you know Macedonian, a domat is a tomato, and I suppose a domatologist could be a botanist who specializes in tomatoes if you're being facetious. That doesn't have anything to do with tsuwm or puns or housekeeping.)
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Like RhubarbCommando said, a caretaker looks after and does maintenance on a school or block of flats, a caregiver looks after kids or those unable to look after themselves for whatever reason.
Bingley
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Wot Bingley said. Odd, though, that a person who takes care of another is not a caretaker. It also ought to mean someone who is careful, but it doesn't.
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>Domatologist appears to be bona fide--in two online dictionaries.
which borrowed it from Mrs. B! (which, as we know, doesn't say squat about its bona fides.)
that said, domus is Latin for house; domatophobia is fear of being confined in a house..
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Pooh-Bah
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men do household cleaning, both in the domestic sphere - especially as contract cleaners - and in the hotel trade. Whoa--I am so glad to know that! Thank you. Possibly there are some here in the U.S., then, too. There is hope yet! <eg> ~ JackieJackie, are you suggesting that, in the US, ladies who clean don't do the job too well? 
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are you suggesting that, in the US, ladies who clean don't do the job too well?
dixbie, c'mere a minute--I have something for you.
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Pooh-Bah
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"Exeunt left pursued by a bear."
Bill S.
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Stop that exeunting, thy cowardly knave, or I shall bear you a grudge! [pounce]
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On a tangent - (Ha!) - Donkey's years ago I ran a hotel. At that time (1950s) it was common to leave a tip for the chamber maid. Usually a dollar for a weekend.
Nowadays it is one dollar for each night... left on the pillow to signal it is for the maid. I always do it for the reason Jackie mentioned - maids are usually working for minimum wage. Then, if the maid gives me extra service I leave a few dollars at the end of an extended stay (a week or more) as at a resort.
The last time I stayed at a hotel (four nights) the maid told me I was the only one on her floor who left a tip. I was amazed!
Now, am I alone in this tipping thing ? (Even if I am I intend to keep up the custom.)
I am interested in your comments.
OK! One-Two-Three- GO!
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I never knew you ran a hotel--mercy, I couldn't imagine being able to do something like that. I confess I do not tip hotel/motel maids regularly; never if it's just me for one night. As a matter of fact I never even heard of the practice until I was well into adulthood and saw where someone had written to Ann Landers (agony aunt, by way of explanation to you cross-ponders) about it.
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Certainly. Here in Aurora we have a small company of housecleaners, all of whom are retired cops, and, so far as I know, all of them male except one. Bonding a retired cop is a lot less expensive than bonding someone off the street so to speak.
We had one of these guys cleaning our house for several years, and he did a great job. Then we just drifted back to doing it for ourselves, NOT as successfully, mind you.
You would think, now that I am home full time I would have a clean home. HAH! With two or three projects all going at the same time, it's impossible. Yesterday at 8 AM I started ripping up the floor in Sasha's room. By half past twelve I had completely replaced the floor with new laminate flooring and had even started replacing the moulding. But that required moving everything out of the room, which created gargantuan messes everywhere else. I could not believe one child of five could have so much s--t in her room. Under her bed I found a stack of at least 40 books, guarded by about twenty beany babies of sports figures.
She greeted the new room with one request, "You didn't throw away my books, did you?"
Peggy says we're going to have to teach her to type so she can start participating here. The other day at dinner she said, "May I be excused? I want to go be incorrigible." Still haven't figured out where she picked that up.
TEd
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>The other day at dinner she said, "May I be excused? I want to go be incorrigible." In the immortal words of Brian's cellmate - http://maxqnz.com/lb.wav
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Sure, TEd, send her around, we'd be glad to teach her all kinds of words...<eg>
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When I was growing up we always called the man (and it was always a man) who worked maintenance in the school the janitor. It wasn't seen as a very dignified job, but most janitors were considered part of our school "family" and befriended by the students as well. Except for one guy, in a two-year (5th and 6th grade) school we were bussed to, who was also given the job of maintaining discipline in the lunchroom and ran it like a boot camp, barking orders with the intensity and wild eye of a Drill Instructor...Mr. Branch, I'll never forget him. Nobody liked him much, mostly out of fear (till after a while, when you figured out his bark was worse than his bite and that he was actually a nice guy)...but we all respected him, and he certainly kept an orderly lunchroom!  But as the years went by, it became more appropriate to use the the term custodian or custodial engineer...now, it seems, we've settled on custodian.
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TEd,
You could always tell Sasha she's encourageable.
(JFTR, my mom says she's busier now than before she retired.)
~~~~
Meanwhile, as for tipping, I always tip hotel housekeepers. Always. Their work is way worse than waitressing. Excuse me. Than "Hello-my-name-is-Darryl-and-I'll-be-your-server"ing.
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stewardesses ... needed a name change.
Q. What's the male name change for a "stewardess"?
A. "Steward".
Let me see if I follow this.
We created "stewardesses" to distinguish female stewards from "stewards", and now we are reverting to "stewards" to distinguish male stewards from "stewardesses".
Maybe we should have left well enough alone.
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it has to do with who is most likely to be doing the job. "Stewards" used to be primarily men; when women began to assume the role more often, almost exclusively in some areas, the term "stewardess" was used. now as men are beginning to come back into that role, the term "steward" is being revived. what's the big deal?
formerly known as etaoin...
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Ah, but the union interventionist is always the "shop steward" whether it's a male or female.
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In reply to:
Now, am I alone in this tipping thing ? (Even if I am I intend to keep up the custom.)
I am interested in your comments. OK! One-Two-Three- GO!
I always tip the maid when I stay at a hotel. Especially when I drink the coffee every day! (Now why should that surprise you??)
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