Blond and blonde

[PuppyMonkey]

I never knew until today that it's blond for a man and blonde for a woman. Am I the only one?

Really?

You didn't know?

[smug emoticon]

I didn't know!! And I know EVERYTHING!!!!

Obviously not!

I knew

I knew MN was only full of clever people. not like me.

I knew!

The only other m/f word in our language is fiance/fiancee.
And that's not even English.

[hijack]
Can you think of other foreign words in really common use in English (ie Kendo would be excluded as it's rarely heard on a day-to-day basis, while - IMO - joie de vivre would be included).

Especially interested in non-root languages, ie excluding French, German words.....

My Dad always reckoned 'labyrinth' was Minoan.

Any Persian words, for example?

Not Persian per se but certainly Arabic:

loanwords on wiki

That's a great list. I love the 'checkmate' coming from Shah Mat meaning 'The King is Dead' - that's a great piece of trivia for pub quizzes

Um, brucep, several words from the languages of the sub-continent?

e.g. 'catamaran' is from Tamil.
'tourmaline' is from Sinhalese.
'bungalow' and 'jodhpur' are from Hindi.

Thus (as we might all say every day): 'I pulled on my jodhpurs, left the bungalow and went down to my tourmaline-studded catamaran.'

Well in that case I don't belong here - I thought Blond was American as opposed to masculine!

This is a perfect example of why I love Pedants' Corner.

Well in that case I don't belong here - I thought Blond was American as opposed to masculine!

This is a perfect example of why I love Pedants' Corner.

kiosk is persian I think

For m/f, have also seen 'naif/naive'. But that is very old-fashioned, I think, and would also then take the accent over the 'i' (which I can't do here).

Is it brunet/brunette as well? Or just always brunette?

bruceb
shampoo- India
ketchup-China
potato-Haiti
slogan-Gaelic
garbage-Italian dialect via the Normans

(acc to Bill Bryson)

I am informed from my left that punch is Sanskrit.

I thought naif was the noun (as in you can call someone "a naif" if they are a naive person).

MyHouse: it is used as a noun; perhaps this may be the more usual use now? Tho' my Chambers (not the most uptodate edition) gives 'naif' only as an adjective. My Websters (bit newer, and bigger) gives it as both adjective and noun (but adjective first). Dictionaries can be slow to catch up with common usage...

i knew