When I hear the word "Lady" (always capitalised!) I see elderly, be
turbaned, pipe smoking
harridans, reclining in
sumptuous surroundings, sipping straight scotch from cristal tumblers and terrorising everyone around them with the sheer power of personality or, if the occasion demands it, their
preternatural guile.
When I hear the word Lady I think of someone who is graceful and gracious, with the internal beauty of a fine Japanese sword - sleek, elegant, capable and deadly power, not gelatinous conformity.
Ladies are the apex of society - the kind that would move mountains without getting their hat askew. Why is the hat important? It's not. But the show of control, the serene inconquerability, the steel backbone are.
A Lady can have no scruples in causing an almighty stink if things aren't going her way - Florence Nightingale is the archetypal Lady in that way. Remember the suffragettes, chaining themselves to carriage wheels and being ignominiously carried off to gaol? Ladies, one and all. Eleanor Roosevelt was a Lady. Marylin Monroe was a dame.