Do words like 'mandate' and 'cockamamie' come from words for men? Grammatical doppelgangers. A pair of teeth.
Grammar Girl: For Writers and Language Lovers.
Mignon Fogarty, Inc.
4.5 • 2.9K Ratings
🗓️ 17 September 2024
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
1014. This week, we debunk misconceptions about gendered language, tracing the etymology of words like "cockamamie" and "gynecology." We also look at the flexibility of English grammar, examining how common words like "that" and "up" can function as different parts of speech in various contexts.
The "gendered words" segment was written by Samantha Enslen, who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com.
The "grammar leaks" segment was written by Edwin Battistella, who taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. His books include Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others?, Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. It originally appeared on the OUP blog and is included here with permission.
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References for the "gendered language" segment:
Becker, Thomas. Autohyponymy: Implicature in Lexical Semantics, Word Formation, and Grammar. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14(02):10 –136, June 2002.
Forster, Tim. Are Gendered Words like “Mankind” Inherently Sexist? Babbel.com, March 1, 2021. Accessed August 7, 2024.
Merriam-Webster Online. www.merriam-webster.com.
Oxford English Dictionary. Oed.com. Available by subscription.
Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/menagerie
Shariatmadari, David. Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language. The Guardian, January 27, 2016. Accessed August 7, 2024.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Grammar Girl here. I'm in Yon Fog Fog, your friendly guide to the English |
| 0:09.7 | language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff. |
| 0:14.0 | Today we're going to talk about words that sound gendered but aren't, |
| 0:18.0 | and then we'll talk about why all grammars leak. Since the 1970s, the English language has been evolving to include more gender-inclusive |
| 0:30.2 | terms. |
| 0:31.2 | For example, Chairman has become chairperson. Firemen has become |
| 0:35.2 | firefighter and policeman, police officer. When we're on an airplane, we're cared |
| 0:40.1 | for by flight attendants, not stewardesses. Our letters are delivered by a mail carrier, not a mailman, and we usually refer to all of humanity as humankind, not mankind. |
| 0:51.0 | I think we can all agree that these changes are positive, but we also know there's such |
| 0:55.8 | a thing as too much of a good thing. And we started to wonder, are there words that might |
| 1:01.0 | seem gendered but actually aren't? |
| 1:03.8 | We looked at words starting with the prefixes man and cock |
| 1:07.4 | signifying male and gine gign gign signifying female. |
| 1:12.1 | Here's what we found. For starters, the word man can be traced back to |
| 1:17.2 | Germanic dialects like old Saxon, spoken between the 8th and 12th centuries, |
| 1:22.5 | A.D. |
| 1:23.7 | Back then, man, spelled M-A-N-N, |
| 1:27.0 | was a more neutral term. |
| 1:28.6 | It referred to people in general, and also to just males. |
| 1:33.0 | Over time, it's meaning evolved, and today, man almost exclusively refers to just males. |
| 1:40.0 | But not every word that starts with man comes from this ancient German route. |
| 1:45.1 | For example, the words manage and manager seem like perfect candidates to be gendered terms. |
... |
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