“Lady” or “Gentleman?”
These terms have come to be used so continuously, and sometimes so meaninglessly that they bid fair to crowd out the sweet, strong words, “man” and “woman,” and a revulsion of taste has swept in that goes nigh in some “sets” to utterly swamp the “lady” and “gentleman.” Either extreme is a mistake.
There is a right and wrong use of these terms; for example, one says to one’s servants, or to one’s children, “I expect some ladies to visit me to-morrow,” while later, referring to them in conversation with a friend, one may say, “they are women of exquisite culture.” A matron may speak of young ladies as “girls,” but if she be not intimate, “young ladies,” is more usual, or she may address them collectively as “young women.”