[just when you think it can't sink any lower]
going to try to do this in under half an hour... i'm tired, i have things i need to do, and my legs are decaying.
gather around, dear girls and boys, the word of the day, sometime last week, is were.
were, as a noun in this sense, is a great old word of common teutonic origin defined as a man or husband, and one which we have unfortunately largely lost. the only common, current usage i can think of is in werewolf - literally and etymologically, 'man-wolf', but it is unknown for certain if this didn't come from elsewhere. this loss in usage has caused a lot of strife though, especially among the politically-correct, some feminists, and many who read older literature. read on! and i shall explain. (i do have to preface this by saying i do not necessarily support any one phrase or etymology over another)
as this is a special issue, there's not just one word of the day, but a few! in the early years of the english language, there were a number of terms for distinguishing the sexes, much as there are today. there were wer, wermann, and wæpmann for the males, with wif and wifmann for the females. as wer meant both man and husband, similarly wif meant both woman and wife. where the problem arises is with this second element, mann. 'man', in its original form and as the basis of meaning in words like mankind or phrases like this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's,, meant something comparable to 'person' without any specification of sex or age. therefor, a wermann was a 'man-person', wæpmann was a 'weapon-person' (traditionally male in these cultures), and wifmann was a 'woman-person'. unfortunately, the two masculine terms dropped from usage by the 13th century, man beginning to be applied to the male person as well as any member of the species. in this process, the gendered meaning of the word man also picked up all of the other associations of were, plus many more over the centuries. as an example, this is where the traditional phrase man and wife comes from, attested as far back as circa 1325.
some seven hundred years later, man became more and more of a strictly gendered term and is now generally taken to not include both sexes. as such, it's largely inappropriate to refer to humanity as mankind, but i won't take a stance on either side of that issue. i'm just presenting the words themselves. also in this time, wifmann transformed into the word we have today, first via wimman in middle english, and later womman, before the reduction of the double m. interestingly, though the spelling today is standard as woman many people's pronunciation for the plural retains the middle english wimmen sound. the use of wife to mean woman, without regard to marriage, is largely retained only in phrases like old wives' tale and dialect usage such as 'fishwife', and 'village wife'.
in other news, the book for today is mate in two moves, by brian harley, who hasn't sold a copy of his other book, mate in three moves, ever since. i mean, come on folks... that's fifty percent more work. way to screw yourself brian.
[nope... way over time.]
gather around, dear girls and boys, the word of the day, sometime last week, is were.
were, as a noun in this sense, is a great old word of common teutonic origin defined as a man or husband, and one which we have unfortunately largely lost. the only common, current usage i can think of is in werewolf - literally and etymologically, 'man-wolf', but it is unknown for certain if this didn't come from elsewhere. this loss in usage has caused a lot of strife though, especially among the politically-correct, some feminists, and many who read older literature. read on! and i shall explain. (i do have to preface this by saying i do not necessarily support any one phrase or etymology over another)
as this is a special issue, there's not just one word of the day, but a few! in the early years of the english language, there were a number of terms for distinguishing the sexes, much as there are today. there were wer, wermann, and wæpmann for the males, with wif and wifmann for the females. as wer meant both man and husband, similarly wif meant both woman and wife. where the problem arises is with this second element, mann. 'man', in its original form and as the basis of meaning in words like mankind or phrases like this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's,, meant something comparable to 'person' without any specification of sex or age. therefor, a wermann was a 'man-person', wæpmann was a 'weapon-person' (traditionally male in these cultures), and wifmann was a 'woman-person'. unfortunately, the two masculine terms dropped from usage by the 13th century, man beginning to be applied to the male person as well as any member of the species. in this process, the gendered meaning of the word man also picked up all of the other associations of were, plus many more over the centuries. as an example, this is where the traditional phrase man and wife comes from, attested as far back as circa 1325.
some seven hundred years later, man became more and more of a strictly gendered term and is now generally taken to not include both sexes. as such, it's largely inappropriate to refer to humanity as mankind, but i won't take a stance on either side of that issue. i'm just presenting the words themselves. also in this time, wifmann transformed into the word we have today, first via wimman in middle english, and later womman, before the reduction of the double m. interestingly, though the spelling today is standard as woman many people's pronunciation for the plural retains the middle english wimmen sound. the use of wife to mean woman, without regard to marriage, is largely retained only in phrases like old wives' tale and dialect usage such as 'fishwife', and 'village wife'.
in other news, the book for today is mate in two moves, by brian harley, who hasn't sold a copy of his other book, mate in three moves, ever since. i mean, come on folks... that's fifty percent more work. way to screw yourself brian.
[nope... way over time.]