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OP
OP
Thanks a zil,
Mel
I probably should know better than to post this potentially divisive question right now...but here it is. You can practice your ignoring if you want!
Robert
Edit: Woops! I didn't see the PC thread before I posted this!
Not really needed is it? A gentleman's game - to me - a game only gentlemen (read rich) men can afford to indulge in. Like Polo or maybe Horse Racing (where you own the horse!)
Let's see would a woman's game be -- having baby? or if that's too heavy -- synchronized balletic swimming.
Where do people find the time to waste on this ridiculous pursuit?
I despise it.
Perhaps it does fit in well with the PC discussion going on in another thread.....I have to say I blithely use whatever gender seems most appropriate at the time! For example, if I have a passenger in my car (a relatively rare event), I like to open the door for him/her first, before I open my own; so I always say, "I'm such a gentleman," just in case they hadn't noticed how gentlemanly my behaviour was....! Then again, I'm the lass who appreciates it when a man opens a door for her, or walks on the outside of the sidewalk when walking with her. That kind o' thing. Well - it comes down to nice manners, don't it? Manners maketh man.
I once wrote a humorous piece for the local paper about gender-neutral language and how it was emasculating English. I had a fine ol' time with it, doing things like suggesting that we had better have two kinds of thick dark table syrup, moladdies as well as molasses, in case any Scots were offended....It was a little insane (as you may have guessed from the example I gave!) but I think people enjoyed it!
In church, where I hadn't been for years but recently started going sporadically again, I find myself out of step with the times: I always want to stick the word "man" into the liturgy where I learned it and where it used to be, and usually wind up saying it all by myself!
eg: Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from Heaven
Whoops. But one of the elderly ladies my mother and I sit with says she likes to say "man" where it used to be, too, so I'm not really alone.
(grandpa)
'Fraid not Paul, fun as it is!
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=71488
Golf is fairly often classed "a gentleman's game", though, at least by Brits.
Fisk
Sounds like an appropriate piece for this thread modgod. Would there be a link to it? And I assume it would be too long to post here. Any ideas? Would love to see it.
Hiya Wise One!
Disagree with you here, I think, although I am going by British (and maybe more specifically English) definitions.
A gentleman isn't necessarily a rich man. It's all about manners, integrity and honour. Oh, and ideals, of course.
You'd call someone a "real gent[leman]" on account of the respect they accord to those they meet (especially to supposed inferiors). You'd also take note of how well they keep their word, as a gentleman is impeccably trustworthy. An unwritten "gentleman's agreement" could stand in place of a binding legal contract. Honour is at stake so there will be no reneging on the agreement. A "gentleman's bet" is a particular type of gentleman's agreement (similarly no third parties required), with an occasional extra variant on standard bets that little or no money is at stake.
A gentleman's game, therefore, is as much - if not more - a type of game than a game played by a particular group of people (or a particular gender). It's a game that by its nature makes fixing, cheating and underhand dealing difficult if not impossible.
Probably the truth is that there is no gentleman's game by this definition, but a favourite candidate locally would be cricket. Not my game, but there you have it. Golf would probably come close. Horse racing and football (meaning soccer) would once have come fairly high up the list, but probably not so much these days.
In fact, being a gentleman isn't valued as highly as once was, probably because of mistaken association with high incomes and/or privileged family backgrounds. Baby thrown out with the bath-water a bit, IMHO.
As to gender, the female equivalent of gentlemen is, of course, "ladies" rather than "gentlewomen". I believe the implicit assumption is that ladies are never anything but genteel, i.e. they would always be polite and fair, and can always be trusted to keep their word.
And who are we to argue with our forebears?
Once upon a time it would, I think, have been considered derogatory to refer to a man as simply "the man" rather than "the gentleman". But it definitely wouldn't have been right to refer to "the woman" rather than "the lady". In many circles the latter rule still applies to some extent, which is fine by me.
Oh, thanks imanishimel for a thread that got me thinking, and that I found related to a subject surprisingly close to my heart!
Fisk
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