lordship, your

   An alternative form of my lord, used to British noblemen other than dukes, and to high court judges.

   There are examples of its use to noblemen scattered throughout the Shakespearean plays and the novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially those where a young heroine is finally claimed as his lordship’s bride. There is an interesting example of ‘your lordship’ being addressed to a woman, the speaker’s wife, in Mordecai Richler’s St Urbain’s Horseman. The wife is interrogating the husband about his activities, in such a way that he feels he is being subjected to a court-room examination by a judge: ‘“Were you with her on this bed?” “I am not answering any more questions. I’m sick of answering questions.” “Did she take you in her mouth?” “Yes, your lordship. No, your lordship.”’ See also Lord, my for a similar usage outside a courtroom.

   Lot, you A rather unflattering term addressed to a group of people and meaning ‘all of you’. ‘Come on, you lot! Hurry up,’ says a schoolmaster to a group of boys in Kes, by Barry Hines. A speaker who was obliged to be polite to the group would certainly have had to use an alternative expression. Angus Wilson jokes pleasantly in Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, describing how Mrs Salad deals with her neighbours. ‘They starts making’ h’objections. I didn’t lose my dignity. I just said, ‘You filthy trollopy lot.”’ In The Magic Army, by Leslie Thomas, ‘Come on, you lot’ is said by an army sergeant to a group of men. In Lanark, by Alasdair Gray, a man says ‘Hullo, you lot’ to a group of children in a reasonably friendly way.