Unfortunately Jets/Rubies sounds gendered to a lot of people: while "Jet" is a jemstone, it's also an engine, a plane, sports team, and a fictional gang, all more male-ish than female-ish. And "Ruby" is a commonish female name and gemstones are more associated with women than men.
There's also a lot of benefit in having terms with "L" and "R" to tie the role names to the roles. It's definitely harder for experienced dancers and callers to switch from Ladies/Gents to Larks/Robins than to Jets/Rubies, but as someone who helped their dance switch over (and who considered Jets/Rubies at the time) people got the new terms pretty quickly. It's a total non-issue at our dance now. Jeff On Mon, Feb 13, 2023 at 10:47 PM Amy Cann via Contra Callers < contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > I LIKE THIS! > I hereby nominate "jets and rubies" as the likeliest contender, far > outshining my own personal fallback, suns-and-moons. > > And btw, I'm absolutely seeing "jets" in my mind as black shiny beads, > not flying machines. > > On 2/13/23, Michael Fuerst via Contra Callers > <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: > > jets/rubies might be the best solution several reasons: > > (1) no relation to gender roles, > > (2) sound like gents and ladies, satisfying those who cognitively have > > difficulty associating larks and robins with the corresponding roles. > > (3) easier and faster to say. Jets, unlike larks, has no hard > consonant. > > Rubies has a hard consonant "b", but the sound of the "u" leaves one's > lips > > and tongue positioned perfectly to utter the "b". (This is a benefit to > new > > callers, who often have difficulty prompting on time.) > > ----- > > _______________________________________________ > > Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net > > To unsubscribe send an email to > contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net > > > _______________________________________________ > Contra Callers mailing list -- contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net > To unsubscribe send an email to contracallers-le...@lists.sharedweight.net >
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