Waiter or Waitress?

Conversation 3

ADEIMANTUS. I have a bone to pick with you, Socrates.

SOCRATES. What would that be, Adeimantus?

A. Yesterday you used a gender-specific word to refer to a person. I was distressed to hear it in this day and age.

S. Not half as distressed as I am to hear you use the cliché, ‘in this day and age.’ What did I say, exactly?

A. You referred to the waiter as a waitress.

S. I see. I find that using a gender-neutral expression like waitperson sounds like taking the piss, in this day and age, don't you?

A. Well, yes, I suppose so. Why not call her a waiter?

S. Waitress becomes waiter. Actress becomes actor. Aviatrix becomes aviator. Why does the masculine form always win out? I can't understand how the feminists allowed it.

A. You have a point there, Socrates.

S. I used the word waitress yesterday as a literary device. Did not Neil Young sing, ‘I used to order just to watch her float across the floor?’

A. I recollect that he did so.

S. We two old boys, passing the hours in idle chat, we could easily slip into depression?

A. Quite so.

S. By referring to the waitperson as a waitress, I was pointing to the uplift to the spirit that the sight of a lithe, young, female body gliding between the tables, a thing of beauty, gives to an old fellow like me. ‘Waiter’ would not create the same effect, would not ‘cut it’ in the literary sense.

A. I see what you mean.

S. I am quite the romantic, Adeimantus. You had better get used to It.