lady, my

   This expression would be used by a servant to address the wife of a peer or a peeress in her own right. Other speakers would use ‘Lady’ + last name, or a polite term such as ‘Madam’, or if their relationship with the woman in question justified it, her first name. There are probably many people today, however, who-worry as much about what to call a titled lady as the ladies of Cranford, in Mrs Gaskell’s novel. The widow of a Scottish peer is about to visit the town, and the ladies consult: By the way, you’ll think me strangely ignorant; but, do you know, I am puzzled how we ought to address Lady Glenmire. Do you say, ‘Your Ladyship’ where you would say ‘you’ to a common person? I have been puzzling all morning; and are we to say ‘My Lady’ instead of ‘Ma’am’? Miss Matty, to whom this is addressed, becomes very flustered. ‘“My lady” - “your ladyship”. It sounds very strange, and as if it was not natural.’

   A more recent puzzle was set in Britain when barristers wondered how to address a lady judge in the high court, a man in that role being addressed as ‘my lord’. Mrs G.A. Guthrie, writing to The Times newspaper in June, 1988, said:

   I note that Lord Justice Woolf has set his seal on ‘My Lady Lord Justice Butler-Sloss’ as the correct mode of address for that lady. May we take it that the first lady Speaker of the House of Commons will be addressed as ‘Mrs Mr Speaker, Madam Sir?’

   As with Madam, ‘my lady’ is sometimes used sarcastically to a girl or woman who is acting in a way thought to be typical of an aristocratic woman. An example of such usage occurs in The Country Girls, by Edna O’Brien. In Hard Times, by Charles Dickens, the young bank clerk Bitzer answers a query from Mrs Sparsit. who is Mr Bounderby’s housekeeper, about whether it has been a busy day, with: ‘Not a very busy day, my lady.’ Dickens explains: ‘He now and then slid into my lady, instead of ma’am, as an involuntary acknowledgement of Mrs Sparsit’s personal dignity and claims to reverence.’ Thackeray likewise makes fun of a housekeeper who is addressed as ‘my lady’ by a maid in Vanity Fair. See also the quote under Mum.