Wisdom's Kiss (94 page)

For obvious reasons, styles of address mattered—and continue to matter—far more in monarchies, and whole libraries have been written on what to call a queen versus a queen mother versus a Scottish baron versus a sovereign prince; Trudy is not the first person to fret over the proper styles for nobility. At the conclusion of
Wisdom's Kiss,
Emperor Rüdiger IV, having wrested from Wilhelmina enormous financial and territorial concessions, then deals the ultimate blow by styling her simply "Your Grace" rather than the more eminent "Your Most Noble Grace" that she heretofore demanded. Ha! (I admit that no one will ever pick up on this detail, but I still love it.)

Investigating styles of address, I ended up making a ginormous spreadsheet of different titles in different lands, though sadly never got to use baronesa, a Spanish baroness styled either "The Right Honourable" or "Ladyship." In part to justify the hours I spent on that thing and in part because I find it absolutely freaking fascinating, I'll include here some of what I learned. (Warning: while freaking fascinating, this information may not be correct. See my
comments
elsewhere on potential inaccuracies.) Should you find yourself en route to an encounter with actual European nobility, you'd best snag yourself some style backup. (Also note that these are all in English; addressing a German baron in German is your problem.)

Emperor: styled "Imperial Majesty" as in "We asked His Imperial Majesty" or "Would you like a canapé, Your Imperial Majesty?" though after the first round the "Imperial" is dropped. Note how Tips in his letters doesn't capitalize Majesty, and Dizzy, bless her, in her diary simply calls him "His Maj."

King/Queen: styled "Royal Majesty," though in person it's simply "Your Majesty," thereafter "Sir" or "Ma'am."

Prince/Princess: junior members (that is, less likely to ascend to the throne) are "Highness" but the higher-ups are "Royal Highness"—when the royal carriage first arrives at Phraugheloch, Wilhelmina snubs Dizzy dreadfully by addressing her merely as "Your Highness."

Duke/Duchess: "Grace"; Wilhelmina's "Most Noble Grace" is a ridiculous though admissible affectation.

...And so it goes from there, with barons and counts usually called "My Lord" and ladies-in-waiting styled "lady" though I probably missed some critical detail ... Count your blessings that these days it's mostly just keeping track of whether a woman is Mrs. or Ms.

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Author Commentary: Feminine Nouns
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As anyone who's studied a foreign language knows, English generally doesn't do gender—a convenience that almost makes up for our ridiculous spelling (there's a special pit in hell for the genius who came up with
cough, though,
and
through
). But English does occasionally employ sex-specific nouns. As a kid, I always found them insulting: "lion" is a male lion, but "lion" also refers to all lions; a female lion is specifically a "lioness." So if "lion" is the norm, does that mean that a "lioness," being not the norm, is thus abnormal? Yeah, kinda. Ditto for "tigress," "vixen" (female fox), "she-wolf" and "bitch" (female dog, and it's an actual term, very much still in use by breeders). The cartoon
Smurfs
are all universal, male Smurfs except for one token Smurfette with long eyelashes and blond hair. There are many reasons to hate Smurfs, but in my opinion that's the prime one.

The most notable exception to this "male = norm" English-language rule is cows. "Cow" means "a big grass-eating farm animal" but also refers to the female version that makes milk and calves. If you're referring to a cow that happens to be male, you need a different (i.e., not normal!) word: "bull." Scratching my head, I also come up with "goose" and "duck," which are intrinsically female unless noted as "gander" and "drake." I might even add to this list "cat" versus "tomcat," although thanks to neutering one doesn't encounter tomcats much these days. (Nor, granted, do we hang much with ganders and drakes.) Other farm animals have separate names for female, male and universal: mare, stallion, horse; ewe, ram, sheep; hen, rooster, chicken; sow, boar, pig; nanny/doe, billy/ buck, goat; jenny, jack, donkey. Given how central all domesticated creatures have been to human existence, it shouldn't be surprising that we've developed so many terms, not only for their two sexes but also their offspring (foal, lamb, chick, kid) and sometimes even their teenagers (filly, heifer), neutered males (gelding, ox, steer, capon) and sterile hybrids (mule, hinny).

Not sure how I got off on that tangent ... The point is that, farmyards aside, most animals are male unless otherwise specified, and the same rule holds for people: "man" doesn't just mean "male," it means mankind or humanity; woman means that person who's not male, by implication different/not normal." Modern English has moved beyond the "men means people" rule, pretty much—were the Declaration of Independence penned today, most of us would find uncomfortable the words "all men are created equal," poetic as this phrase is. As the
Wisdom's Kiss
glossary explores, language has similarly evolved away from feminine nouns. Yet
Wisdom's Kiss
makes liberal use of feminine nouns: benefactress,
foundress
, seeress, demoness, sorceress, villainess, seamstress, prophetess,
murderess
, ogress ... not to mention peeress, princess, duchess, countess, empress, queen, and my personal favorite,
victrix
. It's not coincidence that all these terms are old-fashioned if not obsolete (note the glossary's use of "obsolescent," which means "becoming obsolete"—a delicious and sadly underutilized word). Their fustiness helps give
Wisdom's Kiss
a patina of antique charm.

In fact, my youthful critique of feminine nouns has evolved from irritation into amused fondness: heiress, directrix, hostess, even heroine, now strike me as endearing, like white gloves or French cuffs. When driving my daughter to play dates, I encourage her to be a good guestess (she rolls her eyes). It is critical, of course, that you have a keen understanding of your listeners before employing such words. Were I to refer to myself as an authoress, some audiences might laugh; others (like my daughter) would respond with icy silence.

My personal fondness aside, I very much support transforming the male norm into a gender-neutral universal: it's both appropriate and useful to call women who perform for pay "actors"; instead of the knottiness of "chairman/chairwoman," simply use plain old "chair" (most of us can tell the difference between people and furniture, I think); "flight attendant" spares everyone the baggage associated with "stewardess."

While we're on the subject, I'm also a huge fan of applying "them/their" to third-person singular. Most people do it already verbally: "Someone called but they didn't leave a message." In traditional English, this sentence should read "Someone called but he didn't leave a message"—"he" being the traditional, now-sexist English word for a single person. You could say "Someone called but he or she didn't leave a message," but do I need to explain how incredibly stupid that sounds? Or one can, with effort, circumvent the issue: "People called but they didn't leave a message" (?), or "The phone rang but no one left a message." Such circumlocution usually works in formal writing, but only if you have the time, space, and versatility to puzzle out a solution. English is a living language: when's the last time you heard someone use "thee" and "thou" outside of Shakespeare or church? "You" used to be only second-person plural; now it's singular, too. "They" can do the same. 'Nuff said.

On feminine nouns
in German

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Author Commentary: Ladies in Waiting
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The whole lady-in-waiting business merits serious discussion. As the glossary makes clear, ladies-in-waiting have been an integral part of queendom. And yet how many stories feature them? I can only come up with Shannon Hale's
The Goose Girl.
L-in-w, if included at all, are most likely to be depicted as silly and mean—certainly that's what I did in my novel
Princess Ben.
In my defense, I needed young Ben—and later Trudy in
Wisdom's Kiss
—to be a hapless outsider. Outsiders are so easy to root for; most people, I think, secretly believe they're outsiders too, and want reassurance that they'll be okay. We want heroes who disregard fashion and forge their own destinies, optimally while learning how to fight, with swords.
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Ladies-in-waiting, on the other hand, are consummate insiders. They're all about sewing and fashion and gossip ... what girls do, or at least what girls have traditionally done. Now, you might believe that such girl-type activity is useless and weak, but I guarantee that every single person reading this paragraph has at one time been deeply wounded by gossip, and mighty few of us have been wounded by swords.

Ladies-in-waiting might seem silly and mean, but they're more than that: they're powerful. If you read even a little bit of the history of ladies-in-waiting, you'll find amazing stories. Confidantes, conspirators, antagonists ... It's all there. So why aren't they in fiction? Write, people, write! Go to your keyboards! Start typing! We need to explore those female insiders! We must shape that power—demonstrate how it can be used for heroes, and good!