Nathan <-- redeacted --> writes:

> >Lines like this always make me laugh a little--the female button-punchers
> >are 'girls', the males are 'men'.  I wonder if Piper chose 'girls'
> >deliberately, or if that was just the way he thought of women.
>
> Umm...in Piper's day it was very common to refer to women as 'girls'.  It's
> only since the late '60s and the emergence of the women's movement that it
> has become politically incorrect to use the term :)  Just watch any movie,
> newsreel or TV show from the era, you'll see what I mean.  "Why don't you
> girls go freshen up and we'll meet you at the bar", that kind of line.  A
> man would be shot for that today :)

Well, or at least punched--just as he would if he told a couple of men,
"Why don't you *boys* go freshen up and we'll meet you at the bar." :)

David Johnson                        Net: -- redeacted --
Arlington, Virginia, North America   Web: http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~david
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"A girl can punch any kind of a button a man can, and a lot of them know
what buttons to punch, and why."     -H. Beam Piper, *The Cosmic Computer*