[Sca-cooks] dominatrix

[Ted Eisenstein]

>It is my sad duty to inform you that "Dominatrix" is -not- on the list
>of acceptable substitute titles for "Mistress".

A while ago, the SCA College of Arms came up with version 1 of the
approved alternate titles list, for those with personae from non-English
areas. They used various well-approved dictionaries for translations.

When the Swedes started doing SCA stuff, they also started doing
heraldic stuff; when they looked at the Approved Alternate Titles
list, I am told they burst out laughing. Turns out that the term for
Mistress in Swedish that we'd been using was technically translated
correctly, yes - but in the very wide-spread slang usage that superceded
the pure dictionary definition, the word was used to mean
Dominatrix.

The CoA very shortly thereafter 1) changed the list, and 2) made very,
very sure to ask native speakers if new terms had any interesting
meanings not in the dictionary.

Alban