If your husband joked you were ‘nattering too much'

I accuse DH of wittering occasionally. Well, he witters a lot, I accuse him occasionally.

Good grief. It was a jokey comment between a couple who are very obviously on the same wavelength and comfortable in each other's company. If we start having to analyse everything we say, even to our nearest and dearest, conversation, chat, badinage, chit chat is all going to be a thing of the past.

Given your other post regarding William and Kate's visit today, you're just looking for another way to have a dog at the royal family. Although, I note your worship of Princess Diana and similar feelings to Harry.

I don’t think the OP really thinks nattering is sexist, they just wanted a reason to criticise the couple. 🙄

Apart from ‘cackle’ Merriam Webster’s synonyms don’t seem to be particularly gendered…

(and they also don’t seem very synonymous, she cackled to herself!)

And under the examples tab, where they list recent usage in the American press, you’d be forgiven for assuming that nattering is something men do and women try to ignore

(admittedly I am making the arguably sexist assumption that both Francis and the driver are male!)

In British examples, we have Cambridge hosting a One-All draw between the sexes and Collins presenting an array of nattering mothers, Germans, farmers and people of sex unspecified (but mostly mothers).

I’ll add these to my now very weird list that also features Romanian speakers in the USA, Donald Trump and Jerry Springer…

(tbc)

So you are asking if it sexist, someone says no you whinge at that 'but it is' rightio

So what is the point of your question?

Run husband, run!!!

I think it's more just an old fashioned word, I don't see it as particularly female or sexiest.

I wondered if he'd ever used it before (I know, a very sad life I lead), so googled "Prince William natter" and an article came up about him talking to two football players about sport and mental health. He was talking about the importance of friendship and was talking about himself and said sometimes it was important to sit and "have a natter" with friends. So he clearly doesn't see it as a specifically female thing.

There are only 5 other posts apart from yours when you posted this. I'm honestly curious, could you show where in those five posts those things you say above happened.

Thanks.

I don’t personally think ’natter’ is sexist in the way ‘nag’ and ‘gossip’ are, and it definitely seems to have fewer negative connotations (I think ‘gossip’ can be used negatively and lightheartedly and is possibly experiencing a bit of rehabilitation at present eg ‘two friends having a good old gossip’ but ‘nagging’ is always a bad thing).

I wondered if our differing opinions might reflect regional variation so I did a little research (unlike OP, who seems to have done a runner already)!

(Mumsnet loves deleting my drafts when I go off link collecting so I’m resorting to screen shots, I tried to leave the URLs visible, so that readers can follow up if they want to)

The way ‘natter is used has definitely changed over time - nowadays I think it’s most often used to describe friendly, enthusiastic chat that is largely inconsequential (perhaps easily derided if you don’t particularly value human to human interaction) but in the 1800s it was seemingly more or less synonymous with ‘grumble’

Weirdly, Dictionary.com makes the verb form seem more negative than the noun?

But thinking about it, perhaps something similar occurs with chat/chatting and chatter/chattering? if someone described me as ‘over there, having a chat with x’ it would feel a lot less judgemental than ‘over there, chattering to x’.

Vocabulary.com says to natter is ‘to chatter, to blather, to jabber’, but the examples they go on to suggest seem quite positive and friendly and I don’t think anyone would realistically substitute blather or jabber for natter when referring to a lighthearted phone conversation with a best friend!

Wordsense says that In Scotland, natter is synonymous with nag, so that’s one explanation for the sexist/negative connotation…

(to be continued… can only do 5 images per post!)

I'd wonder why I didn't remember getting married

😁

Oh come off it.

At the moment there is a long list of things that you can criticise the RF for, but this just isn't one of them.

It's clearly a joke, meant for public ears, nothing in the slightest bit sexist about it.

I would say 'natter' to male or female. It's isn't sexist, nor was his comment sexist, or meant to be sexist.

not if you're nattering too much.

Honestly the amount of utter shite I read on here these days I'm not surprised men don't want to marry and I'm amazed how some of these mumsnetters manage to stay married ! All I've seen this last year is utterly batshit man hating women 🤣 it's boring now lol

If he'd said 'wittering' now. Well, death would be too good for him.

I was more struck by the fact that “natter” is the kind of old fashioned word that people might have used during the war. I don’t mean old-fashioned as in no longer considered appropriate, I just mean straightforward old-fashioned like “frock” or “knapsack” or “elevenses”. I thought it rather suited a Royal.

Nattering is sexist as I dont think it's ever really applied to men, is it? Gossiping, nagging, same ball park.

Oh right, William said it to Kate!
Ignore me.
Just trying to joke with the volunteers

If “natter” is feminine, I’m surprised that the brand name Twitter was not rejected on the grounds that it sounded like it was only for women (or frivolity).

This. 100% this.

Would “chatting” instead of nattering have been OK, or is the accusation of frivolous conversation that is sexiest, on the grounds that it perpetuates the idea that women must be talking about frivolous stuff and should STFU and get on with work.

If the former I can’t say that I would assume a man could not join a “knit and matter” group, it’s not an inherently feminine word to me.

The other day a male colleague described another male as “hysterical” (not to his face, and not in the “hilarious” sense). I enjoyed that.

From a husband with no history of sexism, who treats his wife like an equal... no, I would assume it was something he might say to someone of either sex. Otherwise yes, I'd say it was a reasonably good bet that a man who said that to his wife was at least a bit of a sexist.

Maybe.

But maybe the problem is that he doesn't show that he's heard. They talk about bids of communication in relationships and the talker wants a demonstration that their partner hears.

This is a v common dynamic tho. I see it at work too.

The natterer natters more because the other person gives so little indication that they've heard. No reaction at all sometimes. I think a nod or a yeh or a shoulder crunch would actually wind down the chatter.

This particular food bank are ‘completely reliant’ on donations ‘from individuals, business and local retail outlets’ according to Hello! so they probably did request the K&W visit for visibility/profile raising purposes? It’s an effective way to get your charity name in the papers.

www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/20230126162737/prince-william-kate-middleton-volunteer-windsor-food-bank/

Kate reportedly responded by making fun of William’s trolley-loading skills and he accepted her critique, so I’m utterly unconvinced that William’s accusation of ‘too much nattering’ got anywhere remotely close to LTB territory.

If this is the context thing it appears that W was being jovial. So er, I’m not seeing the problem.