3 ms·
That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.
by bloak 9y ago
That works much better with "surgeon" instead of "doctor". Lots of doctors are female, but not so many surgeons, at least here in the UK.
- Cthulhu_ 9y agoI dunno, it threw me off for a bit - "doctor" still has a very male connotation with me. Mind you I've not seen one in forever.
- err4nt 9y agoIn english 'Doctor' is a word that at one time exclusively did refer only to males. A word used for females was 'Doctress' http://doctordoctress.org http://doctordoctress.org
- bloak 9y agoThat could be relevant. Also the word "actor", with the same ending, is sometimes (by some newspapers, for example) reserved for men. Sometimes a similar trick anecdote is told about a "German". There's a suspicion that the ending "man" in "German" primes the listener to imagine a man.
- classichasclass 9y agoMy kid sister is a critical care-trauma surgeon. One of her (least) favourite stories when she worked in the South was when she took care of a rather complex ICU case. At the end of it the patient said, "I just want you to know that you were great, but I never saw the doctor once." My sister is rarely at a loss for words but I'm not sure _she_ even knew what to say to that.