It is serious stuff.

Definitely not something to be made light of.

The Lady Razorbacks are missing in action.

The good news is, supposedly, they have been reborn as Razorbacks women.

That is officially how the University of Arkansas wants its female teams to be recognized, and the reasoning for the change is that it makes sense for marketing purposes.

The UA will not distinguish the men’s programs by sex, just the women’s.

Granted, it will take some getting used to, and there are some pitfalls that will have to be addressed. For example, you could read: “Stacy Lewis, a former Razorbacks woman, shot 67 to take the lead in this weekend’s LPGA event.” Obviously, Lewis is a woman because she’s playing on the LPGA Tour and hasn’t had any operations that changed her sex.

Please understand this newspaper is not in the business of naming teams, so if the UA changes to Razorbacks women, expect us to never use the term Lady Razorbacks again.

Or Lady ’Backs.

In fact, we want to do all we can to show proper respect to the former ladies, but there is something else that has been at play as women’s teams have stopped being ladies because some feel it is a condescending word.

To kick “Lady” to the curb because of political correctness is absolutely absurd.

The term lady is the female version of gentleman, and while there might not be as many of those as there used to be, or should be, it is still a compliment to be called a gentleman.

Granted, calling someone a little lady could be taken the wrong way, but if memory serves, no one ever referred to the Razorbacks women as the Little Lady Razorbacks. Of course, at the 2007 Women’s Final Four, a USA Today columnist, a woman (who took offense at the term lady ), trashed the idea of schools still using Lady anything and claimed it was mostly schools in the South that did it.

Almost immediately, ladies started disappearing faster than marshmallows at a Woman Scout cookout.

At the rate we are now going, it might get to the point where there are no mascots, just University of Arkansas football team, basketball team, etc.

Which would mean the end of the country’s most unique cheer.

This whole name thing started when the NCAA ruled its member schools could not host NCAA-sanctioned postseason events if they had an American Indian mascot or imagery that was deemed hostile or abusive.

Even “Warriors” was banned, and it would be hard to find a man who didn’t feel being called a warrior was a compliment.

What’s next ? Well, maybe some editing and then wellknown fictional females become known as Woman Macbeth and Woman Chatterley.

Children soon might be forbidden from catching ladybugs, only womanbugs.

The University of Arkansas and its decision-makers said all the right things about this change, and they didn’t make demands about it.

Jeff Long, the new athletic director who is putting the UA in the 21 st century with its remodeled Web site, simply said everyone at the UA is a Razorback.

No news releases demanding that everyone change something they have been saying and writing for more than two decades.

No threats.

Just a simple: This is what we are going to do, and we are doing it to help market all our athletic teams under one big Razorbacks umbrella.

Remember, there are no longer separate programs at the UA. The men and women merged.

So, to keep things as clear as possible, the UA will refer to the ladies as Razorbacks women and the men as Razorbacks.

The ladies are missing in action.