I’m thinking back to the times I’ve given a presentation, or just greeted people in a business setting (a group or an individual).
It’s always been “Good morning!”, said after I’ve convinced myself that I’m actually glad to see them.
Yes, of course it changes to afternoon or evening… or “Good 2 am, are we the only ones still drinking?”
I’ve been seeing/using business correspondence since the early '70s and I’ve never even seen that.
What is that even short for? Messers? Monsieurs? Messengers? If it’s supposed to be “Misters” why not just use that?
The plural of Mister is Messrs for some reason.
ETA: Just learned the plural for Mrs. is Mesdames
I was curious and searched a decade+ of work emails and found one instance of “ladies and gentlemen” in a farewell email from a nonnative English speaker, and a few mentions of maintenance on the one of the restrooms.
The plural of Mister is Messrs for some reason
I think it’s actually because messieurs is the plural of monsieur
Holy shit! I reported to jury duty today and the young woman who gave the introductory lecture addressed us as “Ladies and Gentleman.” She was reading a script though. I literally had to stifle a laugh. Luckily I’m in the back of the room and we’re required to wear masks.
“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury” is a term of art, enough that there’s a book with that title and a course for jurors with that title. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear it in a courtroom in general.
Again, it’s very different from just “ladies” as a term of address. I doubt someone would have a job offer rescinded solely for saying “ladies,” but even as a dude I’d look askance at someone who did so. As @thorny_locust said, it comes across as condescending.
We’re not in the courtroom yet. It was during orientation. Obviously I know the difference anyway. I was just very amused to hear it because of this ongoing discussion.
The woman who used “Ladies and Gentleman” was messing with you, and is somewhere in this thread…
“Assembly of noble peers, …”
I did use “I refer the honorable Lady to the remarks I made a few moments ago” in a Teams chat this morning. But that was a deliberately joking reference to the UK Prime Minister’s Question Time, which is a running joke in our department.
I feel like a situation so formal that ypu must use “ladies and gentlemen” is like actual white tie: it literally never happens for like 90% of people. Even addressing the school board as an applicant is not some super formal event that requires breaking out the verbal tails. Its more the verbal equivalent of a rental tux occasion.
Also, hey @Dangerosa! Missed you.
I should be clear that the guy being discussed here is definitely an ass in many different ways. “Ladies and gentlemen” is, at best, a strange salutation in a written communication, and “Ladies” alone in the context of addressing a school board committee is worse.
But is such a greeting in a speech “20 or more years out of date”? Not really. In a business context, though, one is dealing with what I referred to as a “well-defined group”, and also the context is usually fairly informal, so one can address them collectively by group membership (“fellow employees”, “fellow board members”, etc) or as you suggest, no particular address at all. I’ve given hundreds of presentations in my career and I’m sure that I never once used “ladies and gentlemen”, but that was the nature of the particular business and technical context and its informality. But, although “ladies and gentlemen” is definitely formal and traditional, I assure you that its use is definitely not confined to the circus or to some bygone era:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
Greetings on the occasion of the International Women’s day, and a very warm welcome to the WTO.
– March 8, 2019
https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/womenandtrade_e/unlocking_trade_for_women_sp_speech.pdf
Excellencies, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to address you on behalf of the European Commission. I want to thank the Austrian Government and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe for their invitation.
https://unece.org/fileadmin/DAM/pau/age/Ministerial_Conference_Vienna/Information/Speeches/Ministers/EU-L.Andor.pdf
Ladies and gentlemen and honourable members of the PFD, Honourable Ms Linda McAven, Ms Andersone, EEAS (tbc), dear Co-Chairs, Ms Moustache- Belle and Mr Balbis. It is my pleasure to welcome you all to this third global meeting of the Policy Forum on Development.
– March 14, 2016
Your Excellences, special guests, distinguished delegates, ladies and
gentlemen,I would like to express my sincere gratitude for entrusting me with the position of the President of the UN Women Executive Board in 2018.
– Feb 13 2018
https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/Executive%20Board/2018/First%20Regular%20Session%202018/UN%20Women%20Statement%20by%20the%20President%20of%20the%20Executive%20Board%20FINAL.pdf
The guy was an ignorant jerk. No argument there. I’m just saying that when addressing a large audience in a formal speech, even today there is no real non-clumsy alternative to the traditional “ladies and gentlemen”.
“Greetings” was very much an integral part of the Vietnam era, burned into the fear and loathing of every young man who was of draft age at the time. As the New York Times recently said about it,
That cheerful written hello, curiously presented in the singular, was the opening note of a communication from the Selective Service System. It is still remembered with a shudder by aging former draftees because it was all too soon followed by a brusque drill sergeant’s Listen up, a gruffism since adopted by football coaches.
From your quote from the NY Times, looks like it was “Greeting”, not “Greetings”. And, most of those folks are retired now, right?
That’s true, actually. It was widely misrepresented as the more common “greetings”, but it was indeed in the singular.
Retired, but not dead. 
Congrats on staying alive!
Probably not sending too many work emails, though…
Yeah, i really think it is. Are any of your examples from Americans?
Anyway, he didn’t say “ladies and gentlemen”, he said “ladies”, which is much more charged with inherent sexism. “Ladies and gentlemen” is just archaic.
I got a deferral for 30 days because the trial will interfere with an out of town vacation. In my short stint in the actual courtroom, Ladies and Gentlemen was never used and we were told that if we have preferred pronouns we should let them know.
I didn’t really look very hard as I just wanted a few examples to show that this form of address was still in use. I had one that was definitely American, a speech by Diane White, Senior Diversity Adviser, and Co-Manager of Calvert Women’s Principles, Calvert Group, which sounds like someone who should definitely be sensitive to perceived issues of language, but it was from 2007 and I wanted more modern examples. In any case, I see no reason why “American” should be considered the epitome of social etiquette; I would think it rather more likely to be on the forefront of pushing greater informality. I have no doubt that more traditional forms of address are more prevalent in Europe.
I agree.
There are certainly some who think so. I think it’s going a bit far to call it “archaic”, and would regard it more as formal and traditional, and out of place in most business settings today. As I said, I spent a good portion of my career giving presentations and never used “ladies and gentlemen” even once. When you’ve got a bunch of Powerpoint slides on a highly technical subject that you’re going to deliver to a very technical audience who are eager to get right to the facts, somehow beginning the presentation by sounding like you’re addressing the UN General Assembly would have just been comical.
I don’t agree. “Good evening, everyone” is perfectly cromulent and not at all clumsy. (Or “morning” or “afternoon,” what have you). I use it all the time - it has been my default for years since I was kindly informed by some trans friends that L&G is exclusionary to some.
That said, I believe I am correct in saying that Steven Colbert opens all of his shows with “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen…” and I often hear him using “ladies and gentlemen” to address his audience elsewhere in his monologues, e.g. “And this is true, ladies and gentlemen…” [insert joke here]. So I would say it is common in that context still.
Back to the actual situation in the OP, the school committee chairperson did confirm that the candidate’s use of the term ladies was a factor in their rescinding of the job offer. Feels more like it could have been a teachable moment, but I get the sense that the committee chairperson did not really want this particular candidate to get the job (I suspect she was one of the 3 votes against), and was using whatever was at hand to torpedo it. (That’s pure speculation based on trying to read behind the lines).