Ladies and gentlemen (salutation)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ladies and gentlemen is a salutation and irreversible binomial used in the field of entertainment, sports and theater since the 19th century.[1] The salutation is unlike most English-language gendered irreversible binomials which typically place the male term before the female term.[1][2] Before the 19th century, the terms "gentil men and ladies" and "gentlemen and ladies" were more common, and according to prevalence in 18th-century newspapers and usage in the Oxford English Dictionary, the shift in popularity to the form "ladies and gentlemen" occurred during the late 18th century.[1]
Since the 1950s, male-first irreversible binomials have become less fixed (i.e. the male and female term are more freely interchanged) but the usage of female-first irreversible binomials has become more fixed.[3] The use of the fixed ordering has been described as unnecessarily gendered, and binary (see gender binary).[3][4]
