"Whore!" by Nick (nick@cassandra.demon.co.uk).

"If you treat a lady like a lady, she'll become a lady. If you treat her like a whore, she'll become a whore." That's what my grandmother used to say, some time after Pygmalion (which she probably never read) and before My Fair Lady (of which she did see the movie version, although she had severe glaucoma by that time). I think she learned that aphorism in a place called The Old Country. In an ironic way, my grandmother's words are the moral of this story. However, you have to remember that on this newsgroup the connotation of being a whore is less pejorative than it was in The Old Country.

As the story says, "Well what is a lady to do with herself for two hours when she is on the streets dressed like a tart?"

"Tart" - Now there's a word that's underused by Americans, who prefer the more mundane "bitch." Undoubtedly, British men are clever enough to realize that they can call their lovers "sweet tart" and get by with it, because the lover is likely to hear the less oxymoronic "sweetheart." Blimey!