| To fire up your curiosity a bit, although I'm not the one you are asking. In my native language we have different terms for: - (Very) young woman as in child - up to around college age - Woman up to her, let's say thirties or mid-thirties (it's a matter of personal reference, I guess). English stil has only "girl". - After that we generally use "woman" as in more mature female. Hard to mess up, the context is rather clear. - Then comes miss/misses which can basically overlap with some of the previous, but you kinda eyeball it - Lady is more of a descriptive term for someone's style and classy behaviour, and can refer to any age, even to a little girl. If you want to be official, than we would probably use Ms/Mrs, rarely lady. Sometimes lady can be pejorative. It's complicated to call (invoke) somebody as "lady" (hey lady). "Ladies and gentlemen" is a rare direct usage. So... When using English without switching context properly, I find myself confused what to use because I miss some tools I'm used to in my language. I actually find "lady" to be handy in that manner, because it kinda replaces multiple terms I'm used to :-). |