At the risk of sounding like one of those feminists with no sense of humor...

...the author of the dual biography of Napoleon and Wellington I'm currently reading really needs to stop referring to Josephine Bonaparte, Kitty Pakenham Wellesley, Emma Hamilton, really any woman who happened to share a bed within or without wedlock with any of the military heroes of the day, as "petticoats." Once or twice would be mildly amusing, but every. single. time. he needs to reference someone with two X chromosomes, it gets annoying.