Feminised words

Not totally on message but several years ago I found myself in a restaurant in Boston MA. The waiter told me that he would be my servant for the evening (which kind of creeped me out) and then went on to tell me that his name was Chuck (or some other name) and asked me what my name was. I suggested that we would get on fine if he addressed me as Madam. He seemed to be a little disappointed.

unmemorableusername · 24/10/2024 12:50

Whereas a waiter/ waitress does the same job.

My daughter's friend's mam serves food in a Morrisons cafe and a few years back we had a bit of a conversation. It was regarding their manager wanting to go "gender" neutral - She said, I'm not a waiter, I'm not wait staff, I'm a fucking waitress."

Oh thanks for the recommendation, I'll look for She Wolves.
I didn't know that about the Anglo-Saxons are there any famous women to read about? I'd love to learn more.

Personally hate it when women refers to themselves as heroes. Heroine is far better in my view.

I see this has already been addressed.

The Anglo-Saxons our Norman overlords displaced also didn't use primogeniture.

And of course Egyptian rulers always "identified as" 😀men, regardless of the biological reality.

There was a fascinating documentary "She Wolves of England" on BBC4 (so hidden from the masses ,,,) a while back.

Queen Christina of Sweden was given the title of "King" by the Swedish diet. She's such an interesting person but now has been 'queered.' Ugh.
What irks me is that the Royal Family changed from male primogeniture to include girls but the peerage has not.

I take it you are new here ? 😀

Has any idiot tried to trans her yet?

Also, "the heart and stomach of a King"!

Queen Elizabeth I - the OG good queen Bess - referred to herself as a "Prince" - with very good reason.

It really irritates me when people use ‘they’ for a single person on MN.

I always want to ask if the person they’re referring to is non-binary. Although it’s quite funny when they slip a he or she in by mistake without noticing, then return to the theying.

This is interesting, because there is the opposite trend in Spanish. But, even more interestingly, for the very same reason - to normalise the profession being carried out by the more uncommon (to date) sex.

For instance, you would traditionally use the masculine noun with the femenine article:
For example, 'el médico ' = the male doctor / 'la médico ' = the female doctor).
But now it's much more common to use the femenine (feminised) noun, 'la médica .

The reasoning is that there is nothing lesser about being a female anything. So you don't need to borrow the male version.

By the way, I also love words like Prioress and Abbess.

Yes, I know what you mean - they have a weight of their own. The Abbess or Prioress is ruler of her own domain.

I rather like words like Abbess, Prioress etc

Curates, not cumulates!

That really surprises me! My neck of the woods, there are more women than men. Three of the last 4 have been women, or 6 out of 7 if you include cumulates and associates. The lady vicar comment seems to crop up at funerals.

Yes thank you for that! Here it is in ancient Greek: ἡρωίνη heroine
I almost cried when around 2006 young lesbians wanted to throw away lesbian for queer. It's such an ancient word and what could be better for your self esteem than to have your sexuality named after Sappho who was honoured by the ancient Greeks as the 13th Muse.

Ultimately, in language, usage is the final arbiter, no matter what is grammatically, syntactically or historically "correct". The English language - much like it's parliament can neither bind it's successors or be bound by it's predecessors

Then there's context/

Worth noting that it's much easier to pay people less if they have a special word for their job. As many actresses will know.

There is sewist, which is horrible too. I agree with you. Doubtless it will get thrashed out in time.
I had a problem years ago when I was looking for a gender-neutral word for fisherman, as in deep-sea rather than angler. These days they use fisher, which it has just occurred to me does go back a bit because Jesus used it! (Well, it's in the 17thC English Bible!)

Hear, hear!

And whilst we're on the topic, can we please do away with the hideous 'shero'
There's already a perfectly good term for female hero, heroine. Shero sounds like idiots making some kind of point.

Quite a lot of people at my church refer to our "lady vicar" despite the fact Lady vicars aren't (that) new or unusual these days.

Admittedly 30 years is a short time in history, so to older people lady Vicars are new. But we've had one in some form at another at that particular church for at least 15 years so the current one isn't a change from previously.

The feminine version does not belittle women in itself, it's when the neutral term and the male version are the same. It's another example of man as default, woman as other.