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Bill Bryson - the trouble with words (Gender)

1 reply

BumpowderSneezeonAndSnot · 14/11/2017 22:27

gender 'a university grievance committee decided she had been denied tenure because of her gender'(the new York times) Gender originally strictly a grammatical term, became in the nineteenth century a euphemism for the convenience of those who found 'sex' too disturbing a word to utter. In use today in that sense is disdained by most authorities as old-fashioned and over-delicate.

This is a book written in 2001. A reworking of a 1983 book he wrote. I wonder what his 2017 revision would say.

OP posts:
NaturWilde · 23/11/2017 19:12

Interesting! I’d be interested in looking up its etymology. Words change meaning, of course, but would be interesting to see how he’d define it today.

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