Grimmer Girl here, this week I have a meeting middle about the word suffragette and other

gender-specific nouns.

And it tidbit about the word ginormous.

Is it really as new as it seems?

A while ago, I wrote a piece for the Washington Post blog, answering this question they got

from a reader.

Quote, my mom just criticized me for describing Anna Kendrick as a comedian.

I've done away with stewardess and edit tricks, but what about actress?

And should we stop referring to Hispanic women as Latina?

When are gender-specific titles appropriate, if ever, unquote?

And then more recently, Michael L. from Palm Springs wrote in and said, quote, I just watched

the new trailer for the upcoming Meryl Streep movie suffragette.

I'm very curious to know how that word came to be, unquote.

So it seemed like a good time to address the topic again.

These days, gender-specific nouns are often considered inappropriate.

Our stewards and stewardesses are now flight attendants, and our policemen and police women

are now just officers.

All the major style guides recommend avoiding gender-biased language.

There are exceptions, for example, the AP style book does still recommend waiter and waitress

instead of server.

But today, those exceptions seem a little surprising, and they're becoming more rare.

To directly answer one of the reader's questions, comedian sounds old-fashioned to me, and casting

...