Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Grunger, yes bachelorette is widely used over here. Doesn't spinster conjure up the image of an old unmarried lady?

Grunger, Mathprof....

I enjoyed the bachelorette and spinster comments. I dislike both words - the former because it simply looks too manufactured and the latter because it conjures up pictures of sad, lonely women. Grunger, I'm afraid I'd dislike your -ess version, that's due to me disliking most -ess versions. Other than in crosswords, I don't think I've ever needed to use any words, nouns, meaning 'someone who isn't married'.

I'm off to the kitchenette now, to get some serviettes laid out for breakfast. I'll need a towelette too, someone has spilled jelly (jam) on the banquette in the dinette.

Haha, malone, very good!

Jigjag
You're right, it was "hotpot" at home and actually never meatless, though I do remember being sent to buy scrag end of neck! Scouse elsewhere. I always liked the lovely crispy sliced potatoes on top and the delicious, very thin gravy. Never managed to replicate this; I guess it's like wine drunk in beautiful places abroad. Not the same at home, even if it's the identical wine.

The same is true of book and cook rhyming with Luke. Not at home, otherwise definitely.

Recently managed to find some coloured Cheshire in Oxford covered market and revive memories of that wonderful crumbly texture. Eaten with damson jam, of course, though I'm not sure that was standard.

No doubt you remember this, Malone. Many of the barbs would be lost on today's younger generations.

How To Get On In Society by John Betjeman

Phone for the fish knives, Norman
As cook is a little unnerved;
You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes
And I must have things daintily served.

Are the requisites all in the toilet?
The frills round the cutlets can wait
Till the girl has replenished the cruets
And switched on the logs in the grate.

It's ever so close in the lounge dear,
But the vestibule's comfy for tea
And Howard is riding on horseback
So do come and take some with me

Now here is a fork for your pastries
And do use the couch for your feet;
I know that I wanted to ask you-
Is trifle sufficient for sweet?

Milk and then just as it comes dear?
I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;
Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys
With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

Very good PaulH!

Thanks, Paulhabershon. It was great to see that again. I really enjoyed it... until I got to the end, of course. It always jars with me - what on earth are 's cones'?

Talking of -ess words, I came across ‘psaltress’, a women who plays the psaltery (a medieval stringed instrument). Curiously, there doesn’t seem to be a male (or gender neutral) equivalent. I can’t think of another musical instrument with distinct nouns for male and female players (generally they end -ist or -er). Although there is ‘pianiste’, from the French, which is feminine.

mathprof

Yes it is used here for old unmarried women. Unmarried friends just refer to themselves as single.

malone

I loved your piece, a clever vignette! I didnt realise there were so many -ette words in English.

jono

I like psaltress, that will go on my list. At school the music teacher called the trumpet players trumpetresses. We did not have drums, but I think drumress would be inelegant.

Rosalind

No problem for me getting Cheshire cheese, living on the edge of the county. Never had it with jam, I just pile it onto crackers (no butter). Delicious.

Malone @2132: Brilliant!