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Re: OT: Gender Bending Moro

From:Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
Date:Sunday, April 3, 2005, 21:51
B. Garcia <madyaas@...> wrote:
> Language *can* of course _reflect_ gender views (which is where get > get all sorts of chestnuts like "woman comes from womb + man, > reflecting Anglo-Saxon's Patriarchal culture, saying that all womyn > are, are men with wombs!" (yes, I HAVE heard someone say that -- a > rather rabid, zealous feminist).
Heh. Well, the more modern etymologies really arent that far off from that... http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE175.html -- I'm sure she would have a field day with that. Andreas wrote:
> While reflecting about the overwhelming amount of physical work inherent in > making breakfast, a somewhat un-feministic possible explanation for the Moro > patterning struck me - might the "girl" word originally have meant "child", and > had its meaning restricted in the singular but not in the plural?
Wasn't "girl" in English itself originally a gender-neutral term? *Muke! -- website: http://frath.net/ LiveJournal: http://kohath.livejournal.com/ deviantArt: http://kohath.deviantart.com/ FrathWiki, a conlang and conculture wiki: http://wiki.frath.net/