When Did 'Actress' Become A Dirty Word?

[Bert45]

It seems to me that, for a few years now, women in the acting profession have been referred to as 'actors'. Why? With some jobs we have one word for men and women -- nurse, doctor, lawyer, barrister, professor, athlete -- the list goes on. But when we have the perfectly good word 'actress' why avoid it? the Academy Awards still have categories for the best actress and the best supporting actress. Is it anything to do with Political Correctness?

[Peter Pedant]

thank you woof
( first thought it woul d be arabic - shamsa dawla etc)

early modern greek - the 'a' ending showing feminine and overtaking H ( eta)

[Peter Pedant]

// Was it when the actress met the bishop?//

well 1822 Bishop of Clodagh met the actor and created a scandal

Castlereagh before he committeed suicide 1822 feared he would be indicted for the same crimes, but there is not evidence of his guilt and severely depressed men can impute serious crimes to themselves

[jno]

bring back the proprietrix!

[tomus42]

The use of language changes over time and we notice it more as we get older. It's nothing to get upset about.

[Calibax]

Just the usual evolution of language. Generations to come will look back and wonder why we needed two words for male and female thesbians in the same way we look back at poetess, authoress and aviatrix. Sometimes however, the transitional word can be adopted as a shibboleth and used to identify the speaker as fuddy-duddy, out of touch or worse, non-woke!

[jno]

I didn't know we even had one word for thesbian. Is that Ellen de Generes?

[Calibax]

*Thespian
lol -a Freudian slip?

[tomus42]

You wouldn't call a female doctor a doctress, or a female estate agent an estate agentress.

I think actors just want the same kind of arrangement, in line with modern day thinking.

[Jackdaw33]

The woman who runs a shop is still today routinely called the manageress.

[Vagus]

Pregnant daughter in law has a male midwife.

[tomus42]

I don't think so jackdaw. I think you'll find they're routinely called the manager these days.

[Bert45]

Tomus42, we don't use agentress because it doesn't exist in the English language. Doctress or doctoress, why not? Perhaps I'm too late on that one. I've never heard either word used. In Italian they have 'dottoressa' and 'professoressa', but I don't want to get side-tracked. 'Actress' has been used for many years and they still have 'Best Actress' and 'Best Supporting Actress' awards at the Academy Awards. I know it's a question with no answer, but I just wonder when did it start and why did it start. When somebody first referred to a woman as an actor, why didn't somebody else say, "Don't you mean actress?" or "I didn't know she was a man."

[tomus42]

They probably did Bert, but if you're self employed you can choose your own job title, and people probably started choosing to call themselves actors. As I said, it's nothing to get upset about.

[ichkeria]

It’s odd seeing “batter” on the cricket scorecard these days ;-)

[pixie374]

It isn't lazy, bert. It's accurate.
//actor
/ˈaktə/
Learn to pronounce
noun
1.
a person whose profession is acting on the stage, in films, or on television.//

It applies to male or female. There may be occasions where you particularly want a female, so actress may be appropriate sometimes, but either works.