Just wondering, do we still have to seperate male and female jobs like actor/actress comedian/comedienne or is it now all universal. What I really want to know is can my female character be an heir or is she still an heiress?
. I've heard one or two comediennes refer to themselves as a comedian. Perhaps the ess/enne stems from feminine empowerment/liberty or what, I don't know. If there's dispute, I could see ess/enne being a preferred choice of words, but otherwise, why differentiate? The potential heiress looked at the will - she was now heir to a fortune. Would that work?
well my conflict of words was describing her as the sole heir to the throne - sole heiress just sounded weird in my head. She was the sole heiress - is the ess redundant seeing as I have mentioned "she"?
I think, in that context, it's always 'heir'. Otherwise, there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule on this any more. I see actresses call themselves (and be called) 'actors' all the time, and yet a female in the airborne military would be called an 'airman'.
females who act are nowadays mostly all calling themselves 'actors'... same goes for ladies who tell jokes calling themselves 'stand-up comics' or 'comedians'... as for 'heir' i suspect most of today's women inheriting something have also dropped the 'ess'...
