I was talking to my mom on the phone while driving into work when something occurred to me and struck me as odd. We may refer to the “cleaning lady” or even the “nail lady,” but it’s always the “pool man” and “alarm guy.” Why do the women get the lofty and noble title of “lady” but it would sound absurd to mention the “pool lord”?
I ask this somewhat facetiously because I think I know the answer. The problem lies with my geographical region. I’ll explain: in other parts of the country, the male/female pairings are pretty easy. Boys and girls go together, as do men and women, and…guys and gals. We don’t use “gals” in Los Angeles, but we still need something that goes with “guys.” More often than not, people use “guys and girls,” opting for the lower age group (and probably giving plenty of Sociology majors something to write their theses about). “Guys and women” sounds pretty odd, but I think that’s just as off as using “girls” where “gals” rightfully belongs.
So when it comes to naming people who do jobs for others, we get confused by the missing female option. “Cleaning girl” or “cleaning boy” has a distinct air of child labor mixed with a bit of plantation owner. “Woman” may have sounded odd when the person it was describing was more in “gal” range. Somehow “lady” was an alternative that got added to the mix and stuck. That’s my theory at least, based on nothing but my own west-coastian ruminations. But for all I know, in rural Alabama a couple might refer to their “alarm viceroy.”