Of course the past informs our present. But doesn’t the word “landlord” seems a bit pretentious these days? It is true rents can sometimes be high, but so are food and utility prices. Despite these prices and attitudes, you would probably not shop for groceries at His Royal Highness Provisions instead of the Piggly Wiggly, or prefer to get electricity from Your Grace Scuzzyberg Electric Power, Protector of the Seven Municipal Areas and Grand Khal of the Great Grass Sea and Trailer Parkade.
I mean, landlords seems to spend very little time a-leaping. They sometimes get testy if you call them m’lord. M’lord! I need you to unclog m’toilet!. Maybe not all of them build their offices in the cheapest possible location or spend all their time sitting on piles of treasure and doubloons while dreaming of yet more. But it still seems like an archaic job description…
I don’t know about pompous, but its a very old word, possibly predating the concept of lords as people wrapped in ermine and wearing coronets. It dates from the feudal period where society was conceived of as a set of relationships which didn’t depend, as they do today, on the provision of capital in return for dividends or interest or the provision of labour in return for a wage, but on occupation of land in return for an obligation to provide services. The “tenant” held the land (from the Latin tenere, to hold); in return he provided service to the landlord. The service might be agricultural labour, or it might be military service, or it might be a vaguely defined but potentially onerous duty of allegiance. Nowadays it’s genrally a rent defined as a cash amount, and the relationship is seen as basically contractual.
Not that I care; I don’t find the term “landlord” offensive or classist. “Landlady” sounds a bit sexist to me, but that’s easily fixed by referring to people as landlords regardless of gender, just as the “actor/actress” distinction has generally been dropped in favor of calling everyone an actor.
If nothing else, the name was useful so Bill Maher could point out, to those who believed Bill Gates and the evil gubbermint were inserting tracking chips in COVID vaccines, that “no one is interested in tracking your fat ass to the Piggly Wiggly”.
As for “landlord”, the English language abounds with words whose etymology is long forgotten except to linguists, or sometimes lost entirely. I doubt that very many people see “landlord” as a conjunction of two words, but just as a common everyday word with a commonly understood meaning. The landlord may not be a titled lord, but neither is the thing that he’s leasing usually agricultural land, either; it’s usually an apartment in which no agriculture occurs beyond maybe a philodendron or a well-tended cannabis plant. It’s just a word.
No, because the converse would have to be “lessee”, which is what I always say when I’m trying to figure something out.
Actually, I believe those two terms are what usually appear in legal documents, “landlord” being more of an informal term.
Back in the day I had a really cool landlord. He recently graduated from the same college we were attending. His parents left him the house near campus, and he was very active and responsive with repairs, etc. He even hung out and partied with us on at least one occasion (a Superbowl I recall). He would frequently ring the front doorbell and announce his presence with “It is I, your Land Lord. I have come at the behest of my vassals and subjects. State your petition.”
I was a student for many, many years. I have had some genuinely cool and amusing landlords, some very eccentric ones, a couple dishonest ones and quite a few who were very thrifty, though this describes many Canadians. None wore perfumed wigs or frilly garments to my knowledge.
I am not convinced the term needs replacing and just wanted to rant. But it does sound pretty dated to mine ears.
How about “husband”?.
It means “owner”, or “master”.*
Pretty obvious why, innit? But nobody seems to complain.
Even though they now complain bitterly if a husband buys a house with a master bedroom.
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*As in “animal husbandry” or the phrase “to husband our resources”.
