Re: utter exasperation

Michael Lorrey (retroman@tpk.net)
Wed, 09 Apr 1997 13:05:40 -0400

Kathryn Aegis wrote:
>
> Damien Broderick:
> >Yep, that's killed me, invalidated anything I said - what a girl, a pussy,
> >a twat, a bitch, a cunt, old, past it, a wrinkly.
>
> And thank *you* for illustrating an interesting linguistic
> phenomenon, the amelioration of female terms into the perjorative, as
> stated by Jane Mills: ...'the term for the female is likely to acquire
> negative...connotations and, once it is attached to the female, is
> unlikely to be transferred to a male unless to express contempt. Some
> linguists have concluded that this constitutes a definitive semantic
> rule.'
>
> IOW, try and find a male perjorative term that would fit into the above
> list, I doubt you will succeed.
>

Rather the converse, when a male term is used to describe a woman, it
typically is a sign of respect of one sort or another, with the possible
conditional exception of "butch". If a woman is described as having
balls, cojones, she is considered to be "macho" or worthy of being a
leader.

-- 
TANSTAAFL!!!
			Michael Lorrey
------------------------------------------------------------
mailto:retroman@tpk.net		Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
Agent Lorrey@ThePentagon.com
Silo_1013@ThePentagon.com	http://www.tpk.net/~retroman/


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