Talk:Lyda Roberti

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[edit] Date of birth

It is different from the one at Find-A-Grave. Lincher 16:51, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comedienne/Comedian?

As far as I know, 'comedienne' remains the proper term for female comedians. 69.138.229.246 has been changing 'comedienne' to 'comedian' solely on the basis of 'comedienne' being the rarer word, according to her talk page, and I was just wondering how the greater Wikipedia feels about that. - Saaber 13:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

  • Comedienne should likely be used in articles when referring to females in this profession, as it is more accurate. Kukini 13:32, 24 May 2006 (UTC)


There is a type of "political correctness" in changing actress to actor and comedienne to comedian. In much the same way that some "feminists", so-called, don't use the word "history" they use the word "herstory" 66.81.23.133 16:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

In my view, accurate language is not about "political correctness," but it is about "correctness." Kukini 14:58, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

At the very least, this should be the sort of light stylistic difference that shouldn't be outright changed, like American and British spelling. -- Centrx 01:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

I think both spellings are valid. However, I was not previously very familiar with "Comedienne" before. The "herstory" analogy is inaccurate. 69.136.243.29

  • Comedian is the more widely used term. Comedienne is an antique -- it may be more precise in the sense of conveying more information, but it would be hard to claim it's any more correct. The New York Times officially prefers comedian according to its usage guides, and a couple of quick searches reveal that Boston Globe, Washinton Times, LA Times, and Houston Chronicle seem to shun the female-specific term. I believe The Times still uses comedienne, but the BBC uses comedian. I personally think it's like saying lady doctor -- ie, patronizing of women in traditionally male-dominated fields. In any case, I'm all for upholding the English language, but not to the point of reviving dead terminology in order to adhere to some esoteric standard of correctness that's not even supported by the majority of the sources we cite. There's a such thing as linguistic obsolescence, and it's not Wikipedia's job to fight that. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 22:54, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian is my vote - I agree with Lee Bailey. Mike1024 (t/c) 19:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian, we should not stick to the use of antique words just because they exist. Languages change, and the articles on wikipedia will and should represent that. Cpt. Morgan 16:19, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I wouldn't call a word that was in common use just forty years ago an 'antique'. -- Centrx 16:24, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Language can change quickly, 40 years is a long time in view of language. But I do agree that it is not worth going round wikipedia and changing it all. Cpt. Morgan 16:28, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Language is determined by its use, but the vast majority of that use is from literature written before forty years ago. Spoken use is fickle and has little lasting effect beyond what is written of it. -- Centrx 18:48, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • That's true, but this isn't as issue of spoken use. Comedienne is falling out of use in print. The fact that it's virtually non-existant in spoken English only strengthens the argument that its use in print will continue to decline. When academic sources begin to accept a spoken-word trend as "more correct" than its older and less common form, the handwriting is on the wall. I realize Wikipedia has no specific obligation to be linguistically progressive persay, but given that comedian is considered acceptable for a comic of either gender, is there a reason not to use the inoffensive, gender-neutral term?
  • Comedian is a far more often used word. Comedienne is deprecated. I'm in agreement with Lee Bailey's points. -- Consumed Crustacean | Talk | 18:41, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian - Lee Bailey offered great points, and I must say, until now, I don't believe I've ever even heard (or read) the word Comedienne used. - A.J. 23:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
Really? It gets over 2 million google hits. User:Lee Bailey is right though, and the word is falling out of favour and out of use. I'm amused and bemused - I'm the one who started this article and I'm the one who used the word "comedienne". I never imagined anyone would read it, let alone discuss it. Lyda Roberti is a very obscure person, so I'm wondering how did you all come to stop by here? Did someone send out invitations? Why doesn't someone just edit the article and change it? Rossrs 12:19, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
There was an annoucement on this poll of WP:POLLS, soliciting remarks on the general use of the word as much as on the specific case. Lee Bailey(talk) 12:50, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I was wondering. I mean... how many people have even heard of Lyda Roberti? ;-) Rossrs 14:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian. I disagree that "comedienne" is a dead word yet, or that it automatically carries an offensive connotation. Certainly its use in this article implies nothing negative. The worst it does is restate that Roberti was female, which is redundant given that her gender is not disputed, but redundancy is reason enough not to use it. On the other hand, I don't think that "comedian" is a strictly neutral word as it's historically a "male" word and for those of us who grew up in a time when the words "comedian" and "comedienne" were both acceptable – not that long ago – each one carries a different gender association. Not negative or derogatory or discriminatory, but different. I'm bothered that Lucille Ball is described as a "comedian" because of my own prejudice that attaches a kind of "masculine" persona to the word. I'd be equally displeased if Chris Rock was described as a "comedienne" because I associate the word "comedienne" as a feminine word, but that's never going to happen, is it? It's a shame that in gender stereotyping, only the female words are considered bad. Interestingly enough, Lucille Ball is also described as an "actress", so we have one word which is supposedly neutral, but which is traditionally male-associated, and another word which is not neutral and is traditionally female. And one is ok and one is not, on Wikipedia where everything is supposed to be neutral. Despite this, I'll support "comedian" because I agree that it is now the more widely used and accepted word, and I prefer that Wikipedia take a consistant approach. I also think User:Lee Bailey has made the strongest and most balanced argument of anyone here, including myself. Rossrs 14:20, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian. It may not be a dead word -- you said yourself, comedienne gets over 2 million Google hits. But comedian gets over 32 million, if we're using that standard. I do wonder if perhaps it's more common in British verbiage, but to be honest, I've never heard it before that I can remember. While "actor" and "actress" do denote genders, I think that's a bit different; where an actor's gender is directly relevant to the roles they can or can't play, a comedian's gender isn't exactly relevant to their ability to find humor, I think. In the interest of appearing both consistent and professional, I'm leaning towards comedian. And awesome post, Lee. 70.132.42.16 10:06, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
  • I vote for Comedian because it seems the most commonly used. However, I don't think it is clear cut. Both the BBC [1] and The Times [2] are using Comedian. However, the Oxford English Dictionary does list Comediénne (with an alternative spelling of Comedienne) as a legitimate word. In addition I did a search at Brigham Young University's VIEW site [3] and it does seem that Comedienne occurs close to women (eg. Roseanne Barr, Ruby Wax) whilst comedian occurs close to men (eg. Sean Hughes and Tony Hancock).--MarkS (talk) 19:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedian: It's the normall perception of the job. If you were to put Comedienne people wouldn't know what you were talking about. RENTASTRAWBERRY FOR LET? röck 01:59, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
If people don't understand a word they could perhaps look in a dictionary. An encyclopedia should never be aimed at the lowest common denominator - its objective should be to educate, enlighten and inform and if people learn a new word, how bad could that be? Rossrs 12:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedienne. It was in the original article and is not incorrect. Ignorance on the part of some readers is not a reason to change it, otherwise we'd have to replace every occurrence of "proctologist" in Wikipedia with "ass doctor". Skyraider 23:08, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
Good point. For the record, I favour "proctologist" as it is more encyclopedic ;-) .... Rossrs 12:06, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and changed this back to "comedian" pursuant to this discussion. Comedian is not less correct than comedienne -- they are both about equally correct. Choosing one over the other isn't an issue of "ignorance", either: many, many people choose to use the term "comedian" because they feel it's less offensive to women. English doesn't have masculine and feminine nouns, except as exceptions dictated by tradition. The tradition of usage has changed, and comedienne has been left a throughly irrelevant term which many major publications shun, and is not commonly used in day-to-day spoken language. I can understand if someone has a different opinion, but at the very least, please don't revert this term using vandalproof. It's not vandalism to prefer commonly-accepted gender-neutral language. -- Lee Bailey(talk) 19:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
no we don't, at least not for its own sake, but "comedian" is more politically correct than "comedienne" so I don't understand your point. Rossrs 13:42, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Comedienne, because it was the original word (in the language, and in the article, as it happens, two separate points), and I'm very against the kneejerk political correctness that views any word that differentiates between the sexes as automatically demeaning to women. (Lady doctor, yes, implies that most doctors are men. Comedienne, or actress, however, implies nothing. Ironically, "female actor" is a PC phrase that is rather similar to Lady doctor. The wheel goes around...) I'd really like to change it back, since I detest these sort of edits so much, but considering the consensus here, I won't. [/end rant. Yes, I know I'm overreacting.] JudahH 03:22, 7 November 2006 (UTC)