Dyslexia and Decorum

  A lack of the latter was again displayed in what passes for public discourse these days. On a book tour, California Governor Gavin Newsom has mentioned his dyslexia which is covered in his book. President Trump took notice and, with his usual empathy remarked that Newson “said, in a speech, he was dumb, had low Boards, can’t read, has dyslexia, and has a mental disorder — A Cognitive Mess!”
  I should note that Newsom’s response was also a little less than decorous: “Newsom fired back at Trump on the social platform X, saying, “I spoke about my dyslexia.” “I know that’s hard for a brain-dead moron who bombs children and protects pedophiles to understand,” he added.”

This is not the first time the Trump administration has demonstrated a lack of concern for those with dyslexia, among, it must be admitted, a very large number of other groups for which little concern is shown.

Font Fights

    In the Great Reaction and backlash to the somewhat excessive efforts of the DEI folks, there was one you likely missed. It came at the tail-end of last year and involved typeface, which was just typed in a different way and you may not have noticed. For people with various visual disabilities, like dyslexia, the types of typefaces can make a difference.
  Way back in 2023 during the Biden Administration, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken issued a directive that the State Department drop the typeface, Times New Roman and adopt Calibri. Calibri is more accessible it was argued and Blinken said “that Times New Roman “can introduce accessibility issues for individuals with disabilities who use Optical Character Recognition technology or screen readers.”

  On Dec. 9, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new directive. Marco’s memo has, as its subject heading: “Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,” Rubio called Calibri “informal” and said it “clashes” with State letterhead. He also criticized it as a “radical” diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiative.” The reaction was immediate.

  On Dec. 10, this response to the Times New Roman directive appeared in The New York Times. Since it is likely you chose not to read this typeface article, given all the other Trump news, much of it is reproduced below, where the issues and arguments are displayed in Arial.

“A Typeface Falls Victim In the Push Against D.E.I.: Secretary of State Marco Rubio Called the Biden-era Move to the Sans Serif Typeface ''wasteful,'' Casting the Return to Times New Roman as Part of a Push to Stamp out Diversity Efforts,” 

 by Mike Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz.
    Secretary of State Marco Rubio waded into the surprisingly fraught politics of typefaces on Tuesday with an order halting the State Department's official use of Calibri, reversing a 2023 Biden-era directive that Mr. Rubio called a ''wasteful'' sop to diversity.
  While mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation, Mr. Rubio's directive to all diplomatic posts around the world blamed ''radical'' diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs for what he said was a misguided and ineffective switch from the serif typeface Times New Roman to sans serif Calibri in official department paperwork.

   In an ''Action Request'' memo obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Rubio said that switching back to the use of Times New Roman would ''restore decorum and professionalism to the department's written work.'' Calibri is ''informal'' when compared to serif typefaces like Times New Roman, the order said, and ''clashes'' with the department's official letterhead….
  Mr. Rubio's directive, under the subject line ''Return to Tradition: Times New Roman 14-Point Font Required for All Department Paper,'' served as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to stamp out remnants of diversity initiatives across the federal government.

   Then-Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken ordered the 2023 typeface shift on the recommendation of the State Department's office of diversity and inclusion, which Mr. Rubio has since abolished. The change was meant to improve accessibility for readers with disabilities, such as low vision and dyslexia, and people who use assistive technologies, such as screen readers.

   Calibri, sometimes described as soft and modern, is typically considered more accessible for people with reading challenges thanks to its simpler shapes and wider spacing, which make its letters easier to distinguish. Mr. Blinken's move was applauded by accessibility advocates.

   But Mr. Rubio's order rejected the grounds for the switch. The change, he allowed, ''was not among the department's most illegal, immoral, radical or wasteful instances of D.E.I.A.,'' the acronym for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. But Mr. Rubio called it a failure by its own standards, saying that ''accessibility-based document remediation cases'' at the department had not declined.

  ''Switching to Calibri achieved nothing except the degradation of the department's official correspondence,'' Mr. Rubio said. He noted that Times New Roman had been the department's official typeface for nearly 20 years until the 2023 change. (Before 2004, the State Department used Courier New.)

  Echoing President Trump's call for classical style in federal architecture, Mr. Rubio's order cited the origins of serif typefaces in Roman antiquity. Those typefaces, which are used by The New York Times, include small strokes at the edges of many characters.

   Admirers say those flourishes make letters look more elegant and make them easier to distinguish from one another, even though they can also create a sense of clutter.

  Serif typefaces are ''generally perceived to connote tradition, formality and ceremony,'' Mr. Rubio's order said, adding that they were used by the White House, Supreme Court and other state and federal government entities, as well as in the script on the side of Air Force One.

   Many diplomats are unhappy with changes Mr. Rubio has made to the department's structure and leadership, and have reported badly damaged morale within their ranks. But the Biden administration's move to Calibri prompted some grumbling from some traditionalists who preferred Times New Roman. Mr. Blinken also changed the standard font size, from 14-point to 15-point, requiring extra keystrokes that some diplomats found annoying.”

   
  A few days later there was this follow-up piece in the Times: “Is Times New Roman Better Than Calibri for the State Department?” by Jonatha Corum, Dec.13. Perhaps this is the most important point in it: “I wonder if it’s all a bit of a distraction from what the State Department is actually doing, rather than the font they’re doing it in,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a type designer known for Gotham, Interstate and other ubiquitous typefaces. “But it is an opportunity to talk about what makes things legible.” Perhaps the larger question is not which typeface is best, or the rationale for the change, but whether the clever people in the Trump administration deliberately chose Times New Roman to sabotage Newsom's run for the presidency. One would not want to elect a president who could not read the State Department memos. Or, the hugest question might be, to use a word of the kind often employed by the current President, do you think President Trump has ever read a State Department memo?

Sources: I have provided enough for this typeface topic and you can easily find some on your own. I could offer more, but will just give you the one with the best title: "A New Serif in Town: Trump's Font Culture War" by Will Barker in The Week:UK. CANCON Up here in the north things tend to move at a glacial pace, which has been quickening. DEI mantras arrived here fairly fast, but the Great Reaction is just now beginning and only the most extreme DEI demands have started to melt. On the language front, things seem fairly calm. The Government of Canada has enough problems in sending out memos in the two official languages so font issues are probably on the back burners. It is the case, however, that several new languages, which are very old, have been added and typeface traumas may be in the offing. Fonts for some of the Indigenous languages are being developed, particularly in British Columbia, but there are sure to be complaints from settlers who will not be able to find the characters on their keyboards, which sometimes are now required in official documents. There are many examples. The first one below is an "Acknowledgement" and the second a sign.

“This place is the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.”

Expurgations (5) Invalid

   The expungement continues. I thought I should let you know that over in England the Labour Government has undertaken the important task of changing the transport legislation so that "invalid carriages" will be referred to as "mobility scooters."
   Some attention is paid to new words and words of the year, but less to old words which are being erased. You likely have read about "rage bait", Oxford University Press's 2025 "Word of the Year" (actually two of them) and know about, "selfie", "rizz", "vax" and "aura farming." Only by reading MM, however, are you likely to know that the words "accident", "illegal alien", "mistress" and "society" will soon be as rare as a wisent in Europe, or  extinct, like the Gulf of Mexico. 
  Etymology is of some interest to Dot Wordsworth and she noticed the proposed passing of the word "invalid" and also its usage in French and military contexts. Her remarks are provided below to make this post worth reading:

" 'Ivalid' Has Become Invalid," The Spectator, Jan. 17, 2026.
   ‘They should ask me. I'm a complete cripple,' said my husband, heaving himself from his chair with great determination to reach the whisky. The Department for Transport is asking disabled people whether the term invalid carriage in legislation should be changed and what term they might prefer. ‘Language has moved on and changed,' the government says, since 1970, when legislation was drafted.
    One problem is having to keep changing terminology. No one, even my husband, should be called a cripple. No one should be called handicapped. Now no one should be called disabled, but rather a person with a disability. These changes are paralleled in the languages of our neighbours. The Paris Métro had seats reserved for mutilés de guerre. The term was replaced by personnes handicapées. Now these are said to be en situation de handicap. But in Paris it is impossible to overlook the 350ft-high dome of Les Invalides, where Napoleon and other heroes are buried. It was founded by Louis XIV in 1670 for old soldiers - invalides. 
   Invalid had then been in use in England for about 40 years. Both meanings, ‘not valid' and ‘disabled', derived from the Latin invalidus ‘not strong', and both senses were at first pronounced in the same way, with the stress on the second syllable. It was the practice in the British Army to employ invalids in garrison duties. In 1808 intrepid travellers to Lerwick in Shetland would have been able to read in Robert Forsyth's new Beauties of Scotland that ‘Fort Charlotte is garrisoned by a small detachment of invalids'.
   So invalid was a respectful word in the military context. Just as Hackney carriages found their way into Acts of Parliament and stayed, so invalid carriages featured in the Use of Invalid Carriages on Highways Regulations 1970, superseded in 1988, even when people used for them the unlovely name of mobility scooters."

Sources:
  "Labour Could Rewrite the Law to Change 'Offensive' Term for Mobility Scooters as Part of Shake-up," Shannon McGuigan, Daily Mail, Jan. 7, 2026.
  The end of "Society" was noticed a year ago in Expurgations (4) Society, where you can also find out why the word "Mistress" is now missing. 
   If you want to make sure you are speaking properly, be sure to read, Out In Left Field. "FIELD", by the way, is a word you should avoid since it could be upsetting to some. Seriously. See the memo from USC in the post linked above. 

In Love With Norma Loquendi

 Quoth the Maven

   I do not  write much because I keep discovering things about which I would like to write and then never have time to do so. I start poking around to learn more about the new things, while the older ones gather dust. It is a disease of the dilettante, I suppose, to be so easily diverted.
    That attempt at constructing an alliterative phrase is made in deference to a major manufacturer of them, William Safire, the subject of this post. The new thing distracting me this week is that I learned that it was during the last week of September that Safire died 15 years ago. Examples of such diversions which keep me from creating my magnum opus are easily found. I noted, for example, the anniversary of the death of another columnist and even his birthday. (That columnist is Russell Baker: see "Russell Baker (August 14, 1925 - Jan, 21, 2019," and "Russell Baker's Birthday." (Like Safire, Baker was both clever and funny.)
   If you spent the majority of your years in the last century you will recognize the name "William Safire" and remember him as a conservative hanging around the Nixon White House, both of which are true. Safire was also responsible for these Spiro Agnew utterances: "pusillanimous pussyfooters" and "vicars of vacillation" (Democrats) and those "nattering nabobs of negativism." Another one, which could be used in Canada these days: "The hopeless, hysterical hypochondriacs of history." Pulitzer Winner He won a Pulitzer for his "distinguished commentary" about the Bert Lance affair and here are his distinct titles: "Carter's Broken Lance," "Boiling the Lance," "The Lance Cover-up," "Lancegate," "The Skunk at the Garden Party" and "Beyond Lance." We could use him now.

Enough politics. Safire became a prose pundit and his New York Time's columns were under the title, "On Language." They were fun to read and have aged well. Many of them are collected in the books listed below. There is enough reading to get you through winter. What About Love and Norma and the Maven? They are found in titles of two of his books and you were probably more curious about them then you would have been about any title I could have come up with. Here they are with some information about each book.

In Love With Norma Loquendi "Safire charms yet again with his lively interest in our language. ``Norma Loquendi,'' that fickle lass whose name the author translates as ``the everyday voice of the native speaker,'' is the title character of this ninth book to come from Safire's ``On Language'' column in the New York Times Magazine....Those who believe language is a delight as well as a necessity will happily while away the hours meandering through these pages." from Kirkus Book Review.

Quoth the Maven
"There are connoisseurs. There are virtuosos. And then there are mavens. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer William Safire is the maven's maven....Safire - using alliteration, puns, and other tricks of the writer's trade - offers a cornucopia of words, phrases, slang, and grammatical oddities, proving once again why Time calls him "the country's best practitioner of the art of columny."" "Safire probes the surprising origins of such expressions as "kiss and tell," "people of color," "stab in the back," "bonfire of the vanities," and the whole nine yards. He attempts to explain what a White House press secretary meant when he announced, "We can't winkle-picker this anymore.... "Knowledgeable, witty, and impeccably grammatical, William Safire's essays on language are an important and entertaining reference for mavens everywhere." from the Book Jacket.

Books By Safire
  Listed here are just his nonfiction works; he also wrote a few novels. The London Public Library has a couple of them and the Western Libraries have lots. They are easily found for purchase and you can read all of In Love with Norma Loquendi on the Internet Archive.

Nonfiction

Before the Fall (1975)

On Language (1980)

What’s the Good Word? (1982)

I Stand Corrected (1984)

Good Advice (1985) LPL

Take My Word for It (1986)

You Could Look It Up (1988)

Words of Wisdom (1990)

Leadership (1990)

The First Dissident (1992) LPL

Lend Me Your Ears (1993)

Quoth the Maven (1993)

Safire’s New Political Dictionary (1993)

Watching My Language (1997)

Spread the Word (1999)

Let a Simile Be Your Umbrella (2001)

Fumblerules (2002)

No Uncertain Terms (2003)

The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time (2004)

How Not to Write (2005)

Safire’s Political Dictionary (2008)

In Love with Norma Loquendi (2011)

Language Maven Strikes Again (2011)

Coming To Terms (2012)

Post Script:

  I have a copy of the very thick Safire's Political Dictionary and pulled it from the shelf for this exercise. A few pages were noted, for reasons I don’t recall, but here is what was on one of them. It provides a good example of what can be learned by poking around in a Safire book. Note his last sentence. I hope members of the NRA don’t happen upon this post.

“Your Home Is Your Castle”

--A slogan appealing to whites opposed to residential integration.

   George Mahoney, perennial candidate for statewide office in Maryland, used this slogan in his 1966 campaign. It was picked up by Louise Day Hicks, candidate for mayor of Boston in 1967; both campaigns lost.

   “Your Home Is Your Castle – Protect It” was regarded as a Code Word phrase by most analysts, playing on the prejudices of voters concerned with property values in their neighborhoods if blacks moved in.

   The phrase “a man’s home is his castle” is taken from a proverb and was codified in English law by Sir Edwin Coke in 1604:

“For a man’s house is his castle, et domus sua cuique tutissimum refugium…Resolved: The house of every man is his castle, and if thieves come to a man’s house to rob or murder, and the owner or his servants kill any of the thieves in defence of himself and his house, it is no felony and he lose nothing…”

   In recent usage, the proverb has been more the property of opponents of desegregation than of the “gun lobby.”

Safire’s Political Dictionary….1978. p.806.

Cliché-ridden

 

   Last week I noticed an article and will call it to your attention as a public service. If you think you are about to construct what you fear might turn out to be a cliché, go to this piece which consists of a large number of them and see if you can find it.
   The article was published as a "Guest Essay" in a respectable newspaper, although, admittedly, a number of people think it is not. In any case, one has to admire the cleverness of the essayist who had accepted, an article of over 700 words consisting of nothing but clichés. And, he didn't even have to worry about punctuation since all 700+ words are in just one sentence. 
  I suppose I could simply paste here the entire article since it is only one sentence long and consists only of clichés, but we live in increasingly litigious times and I don't want to have to go to court to defend myself against charges of plagiarism. So, presented below are bundles of the clichés from the 'essay', separated by ellipses to indicate that some of have been left out. I will then conclude with the source so you will know where to find them. 

   The article begins with these clichés:

"Ramped up, amped up, ratchet up, gin up, up the ante, double down, jump-start, be behind the curve, swim against the tide, go south, go belly up, level the playing field, open the floodgates, think outside the box, push the edge of the envelope, pull out all the stops, take the foot off the pedal, pump the brakes, grease the wheel, circle the wagons, charge full steam ahead, pass with flying colors, move the goal posts, pour gasoline on, add fuel to the fire, fly under the radar, add insult to injury, grow by leaps and bounds, only time will tell...
have your cake and eat it too, a taste of one’s own medicine, stick to one’s guns, above one’s pay grade, punch above one’s weight, lick one’s wounds, pack a punch, roll with the punches, come apart at the seams, throw a wrench into, caught in the cross hairs, cross the Rubicon, tempt fate, go ballistic, on tenterhooks, hit the nail on the head, a nail in the coffin, joined at the hip, welcome with open arms, rub shoulders with, shoot oneself in the foot...
skin in the game, game changer, change agent, strong suit, ground game, ground zero, inflection point, tipping point, playbook, page turner, singing from the same hymnal, singing a new tune, straight out of central casting, the devil’s in the details, take the bull by the horns, the canary in the coal mine, chickens coming home to roost, beat a dead horse, pony up, the straw that broke the camel’s back...
speak truth to power, break the glass ceiling, the writing’s on the wall, between a rock and a hard place, beyond the pale, take the wind out of the sails of, that ship has sailed, sinking ship, tidal wave, roller-coaster ride, gravy train, tanked, cratered, Rubik’s Cube, Rosetta Stone, Rolodex, poster child, problem child, rock star, pundit, national treasure, charter member, heavy hitter, heavy lifting, political football, throw a Hail Mary, full-court press, hit a home run, play with house money...
armed to the teeth, cut one’s teeth, rib tickler, spine tingling, pull the wool over the eyes of, pull the plug on, pull the trigger, loosen the reins, sweep under the carpet, throw under the bus, throw for a loop, read the riot act, lead the pack, the short end of the stick, at the drop of a hat, the jury is still out, hung out to dry..."

And ends with these:

fever pitch, pitch perfect, picture perfect, perfect storm, take by storm, eye of the storm, back burner, petri dish, echo chamber, hot button, hard wire, go viral, bingeable, blockbuster, on steroids, testosterone-laced, metastasize, contextualize, preternaturally, outsize, gobsmacked, turbocharged, weaponized, apocalyptic, existential …

The Source:
"The Tip of the Iceberg," Michael Massing, New York Times, April 27, 2023.
The Bonus: Is found in the illustration at the top; an entire book of clichés.

Revising The Medical Vocabulary

    It can be difficult to communicate with your doctor and understand what they is saying. The difficulty for us may increase if the CMA decides to follow the AMA and provide new linguistic guidelines to govern the discourse between the patient and the practitioner.  It is not the case that the doctors are, for example, renaming all those bones. The concern is about 'normal' words, like the pronoun I used in the first sentence. 

   When I read about this undertaking, I wasn't sure it was true since there seem to be a few other things the members of the AMA should be concerned about. It is true, however, and the chart above is taken from the report you should read if you are thinking about opting for surgery at the Mayo or Cleveland Clinics. It is more difficult to read than a typical medical chart, but if you want to bone up on the new lingo, read this: Advancing Health Equity: A Guide to Language, Narrative and Concepts. 

   This is good news, I suppose, in that it is great to see that the members of the AMA have finally become concerned about the issue of "Health Equity."

Sources:
  You have been provided with the primary document, so you can read it yourself and decide where you stand. There have been some negative reactions, with which I agree. Here is one example: "The Medical Establishment Embraces Leftist Language: New Guidelines Urge Doctors to Talk Like Social-Justice Ideologues. Whether Patients Understand Them is Beside the Point," Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic, Nov. 13, 2021.

The Bonus:
   Given that most members of the AMA are hardly likely to lean left, probably little attention will be paid to this document. And, if a doctor should slip and make the egregious error of telling a patient they were "vulnerable" or at "high risk", they should be forgiven until we all have had time to adjust to the new vocabularies.
  Such language demands may drift north and perhaps the CMA is already drafting new word choices in both languages.  There may be some resistance within the ranks of the OMA. You perhaps recall that the members did not take kindly to the diktat that required the announcement about "Land Acknowledgement" before meetings. It appears that sometimes good, progressive intentions tend to be counterproductive and increase resentment rather than improve efforts at reconciliation.
  The source for that: "OMA Apologizes for Offending Indigenous Peoples. The Ontario Medical Association is in Damage-control Mode After its Governing Council Voted Against a Motion to Open Meetings With an Increasingly Cited Acknowledgement That They Were Being Held on Traditional Lands of Indigenous Peoples," Theresa Boyle, Toronto Star, May1, 2018. 

Expurgations (3) Mistress

For reasons that are unclear to me, I have been offering you linguistic warnings so that you will not embarrass yourself. Perhaps I am doing so simply because our language seems to be changing more rapidly and the penalties for violations in usage are increasingly severe. In any case, avoid the word ‘mistress’.

The subject is broached by the very accomplished Paula Broadwell, West Point graduate, Harvard graduate, etc., etc. who you know only as the mistress of General Petraeus, who is generally described only by reference to his professional and military achievements since there is no corresponding male word for ‘mistress’.

The problem was addressed by the public editor of The New York Times in this article: “Is ‘Mistress’ a Word That Has Seen Its Best Days?”, Margaret Sullivan, March 26, 2015. After receiving many comments and complaints she thinks the word should go. Here is a portion of the article:

“I propose just such a shove to hasten the departure of “mistress” from news stories describing a modern-day woman having an extramarital affair.
I asked the standards editor, Philip B. Corbett, about the use of the term in Times stories. He responded:

‘I agree that “mistress” has a somewhat old-fashioned tone to it that isn’t ideal (though I don’t accept the argument that it necessarily implies a financial arrangement; it doesn’t. First definition from American Heritage: “A woman who has a continuing sexual relationship with a man who is married to someone else.”)

One problem is that there isn’t really a perfect word here. “Lover” is probably a little better, and we’ve used it fairly often in the Petraeus-Broadwell situation. But “lover” doesn’t necessarily convey the idea that one or both partners is married to someone else. And it, too, has a bit of a romance-novel tone that isn’t perfect in a news story.’
A longer description is probably best, but not always easy or practical in a headline or a lead paragraph: “the woman with whom Mr. Petraeus, who was married, carried on a secret sexual relationship …”?

In a more recent article about the issue  in the Times the author concludes:
“As a student of language, I was sympathetic to her [Broadwell’s] cause. As I am a feminist, the double standard apparent in the way she was characterized was clear: He was the revered general who made a grave mistake; she was a psycho homewrecker who, as many often reminded her, had “brought the general down.” “Why Do People Still Use the Word ‘Mistress’? A Reporter Reflects, Jessica Bennett, June 7, 2016

I was able to find an earlier article about another ‘affair’ which also raised the issue of the word ‘mistress’ and here it is:

“A “Mistress” by Any Other Name: Can't We Find a Better Word to Refer to Maria Belen Chapur?” Mary Elizabeth Williams, Salon, July 1, 2009.

“As we sift through the wreckage of the Mark Sanford [remember him? - the former Governor of South Carolina who supposedly was out hiking] media circus, one thing that’s become clear is that the English language is sadly lacking for nomenclature. Specifically — shouldn’t we have a better word for a professional woman who’s had a husband and a family and career of her own than “mistress”?

The word, after all, carries old fashioned associations with a “kept woman,” and it certainly has no satisfying male counterpart. If Maria Belen Chapur was a mistress to Sanford, what, after all, was he to her?”

The Associated Press now deal with the issue in the latest AP Stylebook: “The AP now suggest avoiding the word mistress because there is no male equivalent. Instead they recommend using friend, companion, or lover. The new entry reads: “Whenever possible, phrasing that acknowledges both people in the relationship is preferred: ‘The two were romantically (or sexually) involved.” “The Signified and the Signifier: AP Stylebook Rejects Your Misogyny, Says No More Mistress,” Eve Peyser, New York Magazine, April 4, 2016.

As you might imagine, readers of some of these articles came up with suggestions for a good male term. For example, General Petraeus could have been referred to as Broadwell’s “Main Squeeze”,  or “misteress” or “cicisbeo” could be used.

I gave this topic some thought since it is highly likely that “mistresses” will be discussed more often than, say NAFTA, as the U.S. presidential campaign enters even more ruthless territory. But, I realized that the issue is far too complicated for me - as most of these topics are, once I start trying to think about them. For example, if one does come up with a new word to describe the randy husband, will it be usable when the couple come from the same sex and one of them fools around with an option from one of the growing number of other genders? And what about related concepts? If someone is fortunate enough to turn Trump into a “cuckold”, how do we refer to his wife - as the “cuckquean”? You see what I mean.

Before I abandoned this project I did have a look at the OED. It is interesting that the first few definitions of “mistress” are positive as in - “A woman who has charge of a child or young person; a governess”. It is only when you get to number seven that you find - “Mistress -  A woman other than his wife with whom a man has a long-lasting sexual relationship. In early use: †a woman notorious for some act.”

I did, however, learn one thing when I looked at some of the early uses of the word and that is that Men have always been, and will likely continue to be, Cads. See below:

1675   W. Wycherley Country-Wife i. i. 5   And next, to the pleasure of making a New Mistriss, is that of being rid of an old One.