A Seamstress by Any Other Name Would Sew as Straight?
Something that has just recently started to annoy me but has apparently been a bugaboo in the blogosphere for a while is the use of the word "sewist."
To me, it's smacks of a PC need to glorify one's ability to sew. Now, in my world, this is such a commonplace skill that it doesn't bear the need to have a silver-plated pin applied to it. And this terms smacks of a pompous need for recognition - more of the celebration of the everyday that annoys me. Like a 5th grade graduation or a "participation certificate."
I don't really get whats wrong with Seamstress, Tailor, Sempster, or even Sewer - it's usually clear from the context that we do not mean the Cloaca Maxima. (And if you don't get that reference, you're insufficiently well-read to be allowed to make up new words).
The connotation, in my world, is that a "sewist" is a johnny-come-lately who has just figured out how to hem a dishtowel. One to whom making a child's dress out of a pillowcase is both a revelation and an activity requiring step-by-step instructions.
Possibly I put "sewist" and "defeatist" in the same category. "Don't be defeatist, dear. It's terribly Middle Class."
This entry was originally posted at http://femkes-follies.dreamwidth.org/350470.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
To me, it's smacks of a PC need to glorify one's ability to sew. Now, in my world, this is such a commonplace skill that it doesn't bear the need to have a silver-plated pin applied to it. And this terms smacks of a pompous need for recognition - more of the celebration of the everyday that annoys me. Like a 5th grade graduation or a "participation certificate."
I don't really get whats wrong with Seamstress, Tailor, Sempster, or even Sewer - it's usually clear from the context that we do not mean the Cloaca Maxima. (And if you don't get that reference, you're insufficiently well-read to be allowed to make up new words).
The connotation, in my world, is that a "sewist" is a johnny-come-lately who has just figured out how to hem a dishtowel. One to whom making a child's dress out of a pillowcase is both a revelation and an activity requiring step-by-step instructions.
Possibly I put "sewist" and "defeatist" in the same category. "Don't be defeatist, dear. It's terribly Middle Class."
This entry was originally posted at http://femkes-follies.dreamwidth.org/350470.html. Please comment there using OpenID.