All right all right all right... I'm'a ask you to think of a definition. This isn't surprising to you frequenters at this point, it's pretty much how I start out every one of these. I ask you to think of a definition, then I proceed to tell you how you're wrong, or relate that word to a totally unrelated word that used to be the same word, or something like that. Old hat, yadda yadda, slap another issue together and print it. But today I'm actually kinda excited about this.
Define 'man'.
Ooooooooohoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Okay. Done? You're done. It was instant. I said "man" and you native English speakers were all like "duh" and now we're moving on to the expected second word and you already know what's coming, you brilliant frequenter you! You lovely beautiful human!
Define 'woman'.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Yes! Good work! Well done, you articulate, unfathomable intellect! You have, of course, correctly defined both of those words because they're literally the easiest words to define! They're in like the first hundred words English speakers learn, right up there with 'dad' and 'mom' and 'num-nums' and 'Star-Trek'!
Aaaaah... You're probably confused. That's justified. I'll take two sentences to make sure we're all on the same page. In English, a 'man' is defined first as "a human male", and a 'woman' is defined first as "a human female". There's a modifier to define femininity, just as 'fe' distinguishes 'male' from 'female' in taxonomy. That what you got? Yeah, that's what you got. It's literally one of the most straightforward (and linguistically sexist) things in English, and it's been that way probably forever. Even in like, Latin.
Oh you're so clever. You can see where I'm going already.
WRONG! Muahahahahaaa! You're wrong!
Okay, I mean, maybe not entirely. In today's English that is basically what the words mean. But there's always that hesitation to use words like 'mankind' or refer to the species as 'man' or, heck, even a person as 'human' because that's also sexist, right? They're all a modification of the word 'man' like everything else, even groupings are somehow a sub-type of the gender and it's the literal linguistic holdover from that whole Adam and Eve thing. Shouldn't something like "all men are created equal" be something like "all people are created equal" as the bard said?
I mean, sure! That's a really nice sentiment in today's world and if you're trying to train your brain to use 'people' instead of 'man' in those contexts it's not like that's a bad thing and more power to you, keep up the good work.
But it might also be of interest for you to know that originally that's what 'man' meant. In Old English, 'man' or 'mann' meant "human being, person, or hero". Later, as societies trended toward feudalism, it also meant "servant or vassal" regardless of gender. There was no gender associated with the word originally, at all, in any context. Gender was distinguished using the words 'wif' (which probably turned into 'wife' over time) and 'wer', which fell out of use, vanished, and was replaced by the newly gendered term 'man' in the late 13th century after a thousand years of non-gendered use.
So if, and hear me out on this, if you are trying to retrain your brain to speak in terms of 'people' instead of 'man/woman' because you're trying not to think in reductory terms regarding the latter, why not instead jump back in time a few thousand years and start using 'wifman' to refer to female people and 'werman' to refer to male people! They're both modifications of the base species, 'man', and due to the relative pronunciation similarities with modern English words you will confuse the snot out of so many people!
Doesn't that sound like fun??
Define 'man'.
Ooooooooohoo-hoo-hoo-hoo. Okay. Done? You're done. It was instant. I said "man" and you native English speakers were all like "duh" and now we're moving on to the expected second word and you already know what's coming, you brilliant frequenter you! You lovely beautiful human!
Define 'woman'.
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-haaa! Yes! Good work! Well done, you articulate, unfathomable intellect! You have, of course, correctly defined both of those words because they're literally the easiest words to define! They're in like the first hundred words English speakers learn, right up there with 'dad' and 'mom' and 'num-nums' and 'Star-Trek'!
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| Um, yes... thanks, Google... |
Aaaaah... You're probably confused. That's justified. I'll take two sentences to make sure we're all on the same page. In English, a 'man' is defined first as "a human male", and a 'woman' is defined first as "a human female". There's a modifier to define femininity, just as 'fe' distinguishes 'male' from 'female' in taxonomy. That what you got? Yeah, that's what you got. It's literally one of the most straightforward (and linguistically sexist) things in English, and it's been that way probably forever. Even in like, Latin.
Oh you're so clever. You can see where I'm going already.
WRONG! Muahahahahaaa! You're wrong!
Okay, I mean, maybe not entirely. In today's English that is basically what the words mean. But there's always that hesitation to use words like 'mankind' or refer to the species as 'man' or, heck, even a person as 'human' because that's also sexist, right? They're all a modification of the word 'man' like everything else, even groupings are somehow a sub-type of the gender and it's the literal linguistic holdover from that whole Adam and Eve thing. Shouldn't something like "all men are created equal" be something like "all people are created equal" as the bard said?
I mean, sure! That's a really nice sentiment in today's world and if you're trying to train your brain to use 'people' instead of 'man' in those contexts it's not like that's a bad thing and more power to you, keep up the good work.
But it might also be of interest for you to know that originally that's what 'man' meant. In Old English, 'man' or 'mann' meant "human being, person, or hero". Later, as societies trended toward feudalism, it also meant "servant or vassal" regardless of gender. There was no gender associated with the word originally, at all, in any context. Gender was distinguished using the words 'wif' (which probably turned into 'wife' over time) and 'wer', which fell out of use, vanished, and was replaced by the newly gendered term 'man' in the late 13th century after a thousand years of non-gendered use.
So if, and hear me out on this, if you are trying to retrain your brain to speak in terms of 'people' instead of 'man/woman' because you're trying not to think in reductory terms regarding the latter, why not instead jump back in time a few thousand years and start using 'wifman' to refer to female people and 'werman' to refer to male people! They're both modifications of the base species, 'man', and due to the relative pronunciation similarities with modern English words you will confuse the snot out of so many people!
Doesn't that sound like fun??
Yes! I love this! You are indeed the intellectual I always wanted to be.
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