Sunday, May 2, 2010

Semantics

According to Webster, a mistress is:

4 a
: a woman other than his wife with whom a married man has a continuing sexual relationship

I only bring this up because, last night when I was listening to ABC News, they referred to a public figure who was caught cheating on his wife. According to the "news" sources, several dozen mistresses then appeared out of the woodwork.

I just want to know when a one-night stand, a conquest, a notch in the bedpost became known as a mistress. I find it hard to believe that this individual had "continuing" relationships with that many women. Why can't we just use the correct words? These women are not mistresses. They are adulteresses.




8 comments:

Sayre said...

Misuse of the english languge is one of my pet peeves. Even to day in the USA Weekend supplement of our newspaper, there's an article about Michelle Obama - Mama in Chief. FIRST WORD in the FIRST sentence is not the right word for what they were saying. It said "Bearing her famously muscular arms..." when the word should have been "Baring..." National publication folks.

mark said...

One night stands count as mistresses when it makes a good news story. ;)

Debs said...

I guess they think Mistresses sounds nicer than adulteresses.
Either word to me means not a nice woman. ;) LOL

Karmyn R said...

Very good point!!!

Pamela said...

yes... they are just ho'ho's on the bone.

willowtree said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
willowtree said...

While I take your point, adultery is generally defined as "Sexual intercourse by a married person with someone other than their spouse." or "Sexual intercourse between a spouse and an individual to whom they are not married." This means that in order to be an adulterer (or adulteress) you must be married.

So while the douche-bag public figure is most definitely a serial adulterer, we don't know the marital status of the women, therefore we can't state unequivocally that they were adulteresses, even though they were involved in an adulterous act.

There's also the slim possibility that some of them were oblivious to his marital status, in which case they were simply duped, or that they charged for their services which would make them prostitutes not adulteresses, as it was simply a business transaction for them.

janet said...

I just feel so bad for the wives who have to constantly hear the media continue to publicize the drama.

 
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