We’ve discussed this before, but I couldn’t find the thread. In discussing the gender names of human adults, technically speaking, the words woman and women should be paired with man and men, and the terms lady and ladies should be paired with gentlemen and gentlemen. But it’s more typical these days to see “Men” and “Ladies” paired together, as in men’s and ladies restrooms, men’s and ladies’ sportswear, and so on.
Is this just an American thing? In other English speaking countries is the more formal definition still in common use?
I’ve seen both versions used here. A restaurant might have its toilets labelled *Men’s * and Women’s, or it might use *Men’s * and Ladies’. Shops use all sorts of variations: women’s wear, ladies’ clothing, *gentlemen’s outfitter * etc.
The abbreviation of ‘Gentlemen’ I have seen to pair with ‘Ladies’ is ‘Gents’.
Still I agree that ‘Ladies’ and ‘Men’ are paired occasionally, but I have never seen ‘Gentlemen’ and ‘Women’ as a pair. So if the more polite form is used only once, it is always for the ladies. Is this common, or have I just failed to see the other examples?
In my experience, you don’t usually find this pairing when referring directly to men and women in general, but rather in derived or qualified forms, hence Men’s Room/Ladies’ Room, young man/young lady, but not a Harvard study of 250 men and ladies, ladies and men are especially at risk.
It seems like ‘lady’ can been used interchangeably with ‘woman’ in many contexts (and vice versa), but substituting ‘gentleman’ for ‘man’ is usually awkward.