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From New York City, this is Lexicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter.

I teach linguistics at Columbia University.

And not long ago, I was at the Brooklyn Museum.

One does that sometimes.

And one of the exhibits was something called The Dinner Party.

It had nothing to do with dinner at eight, the dinner party by Judy,

Chicago, and it's from the 70s, and there were these plates. But more to the point, I was

looking at some of the text on the wall, and it involved that wonderful term, herstery, in place

of history, the idea being that it's women's story as opposed to men's story. And that's

perfectly reasonable and understandable. But for some reason, seeing that word got me thinking,

yes, you can see how I get inspired for topics for this podcast. This was quite difficult.

I was thinking, you know, terms referring to women often have interesting histories and origins. And I think most of us know that the fact

that history looks like his story is an accident. But there are other terms for women where

there are all sorts of weird assumptions that have been built into how the word has changed over time.

And there are just various lessons that you can learn.

And of course, I think really we should begin with the word woman.

Now, I'm no longer doubtful of what I'm living for.

And if I make you happy, I don't need to do more.

Because you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural woman. Woman.

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