[Sanity Sunday] Regarding sexist language and the conspiracy of the patriarchy.

SANITY SUNDAY
[Sanity Sunday] Regarding sexist language and the conspiracy of the patriarchy.

Posted Jan 2, 2017, 3:00 AM UTC

1.2K92
Guaymaster•

Rekt

Languages don't exist in a vacuum and evolve over time, borrowing words from other languages? Who would have thought!

234
TreecubOP•

English especially.

English likes to lurk in dark alleys, punching other languages in the face and then rifling through their pockets for spare vocabulary.

236
LerrisHarrington•

I've always heard it as "We mug other languages in back alley's looking for shiny adverbs."

Either way, it's a good way to describe what English does. We don't just go "oh hey, that's good, we need a word for that too" we go "That's a good word, we're taking that!"

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sunnygovan•

Except pineapple. Someone was feeling odd that day.

38
Divest1987•

For those missing the reference:

https://i.stack.imgur.com/0wtlv.jpg

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NoskcajLlahsram•

Not really, until fairly modern english (I think) all fruit were apples (except those that were berries), my favourite being that oranges were called orange-apples (as in the apple from the orange tree) thus the colour is named after the fruit! So Pine apples are apples as in fruit and piney as in (s)piney, just like a pine tree is like a normal tree, except it has spines in stead of leaves!

9
Jujugatame•

As a Russian I grew up saying ananas, but I totally understand the English speaking people, they didn't want to have a fruit called "an anus".

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MrNature72•

My headcanon is someone who was a little drunk called it a 'spine apple', slurred it a bit, and it stuck.

3
Guaymaster•

I've heard that before around here!

8

I am stealing this for my linguistics classes from now on

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TheOuts1der•

It's a quote from James Nicoll: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. "

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TreecubOP•

Thank you! A long time ago I had the full and proper quote written down somewhere, but that was 10 years and many miles ago.

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KerankouNapoleon-kin•

From historic perspective this doesn't really makes sense, it's more like was born after old french, old german and latin decided to have an orgy.

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Themadant•

This is how I will describe my language from now on

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Lithuim•

borrowing words

You mean appropriating words!?!

40
SugaRushAnarchySchro-gender•

Holy hell. Now that's how you fight an SJW.

118
TreecubOP•

As someone who also loves the hell out of languages, I read the whole thing slack-jawed. It was epic.

Plus, who doesn't love a little etymology lesson?

99
ongebruikersnaam•

Not the tumblrina that posted this I'm afraid, they'll probably blocked you faster than light after reading the first sentence.

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renkol123Raging Ecosexual•

Nor my Women's Studies professor when I pointed this out to her. Apparently since the etymology of words is uncommon knowledge, it doesn't matter; therefore, the words need to change anyway because they make maleness default.

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sockerino•

Not like "educate yourself" is a phrase that's ever slipped from a tumblrina's lips/keyboard...

Know what else is or used to be "uncommon knowledge"? The clitoris! Loads of stuff around women's health! The plight of poor women in rural India who can't go to the toilet at night without worrying they'll be raped! But I guess things we don't already know about don't matter.

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grampiponcisgenderfluidbikin•

Why did you take women's studies? From my experience those courses attract fanatical lunatics

6
shadowpresidentdc(do not tag as ship/kin, i will block you)•

Womxxn's Women's Studies

FTFY

4
famousninjaMad Cunt, Pronouns are: Cunt|Cunt|Cunt•

Funny thing is that patriarchy theory is also relatively unknown, so should we ignore that too?

3
JestyerAverageJoeTriggered Attack Helicopter-Kin•

my Women's Studies professor

Do you hate yourself or something? Why would you subject yourself to hate speech and psychological programming?

2
conalfisher•

She probably just commented "fuk you sexist bigot" and blocked him though.

15
timoneer•

What a great mansplanation.

42
WhatsThisLeverFor•

I love linguists

40
StardustOasisNon-Newtonian gender fluid•

Cunning linguists?

41
LikeaLioness•

I love linguists except when they're telling me that I can't get mad about people saying "you've got another thing coming". Screw you, linguists, descriptivism is necessary for research but not for my personal life choices! I do what I want!

2
MastermindX•

If words contain "man" because of a secret conspiracy of the patriarchy, then who coined the terms manspreading and mansplaining?

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Dr_Burke•

That's all part of the master manster plan

9
Merosi•

join the fun people at

no, i think i'm fine staying here, thanks.

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narmorraTitan Sunbreaker-kin, pronouns: *clang*/oh/fuck•

Linguists basically

Source: I studied it for 2 years :(

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Merosi•

i guess linguists can make amazing puns, it's just that nobody would get them without also being a linguist.

8
Tylly•

You need linguist friends!

2
Kiljeaden•

men fabricated language to make them seem as the default sex to hide their biological inferiority

biological inferiority

Basically on top in any human social order anywhere in the world. Welp....

19
headless_bourgeoisiePansexual spokesthing•

We're so superfluous we built every society on earth.

12
Tylly•

As a linguist, I could not be more erect right now.

12
RedditDan00•

I always wanted to see the replies they get, they're never included

10

and i bet her response was nothing more eloquent than "fuck you"

10
Exclemator•

I loved reading that. It was quite satisfying.

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CasualRaisinHuman Male (Latin name: Homo Rapiens)•

I will always upvote this whenever it gets posted here. It's just such a good rebuttal.

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narmorraTitan Sunbreaker-kin, pronouns: *clang*/oh/fuck•

My reaction when I first opened this link

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Guaymaster•

My name is Swofenhuper Hemanmalemanson, the manliest man in the manly world.

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narmorraTitan Sunbreaker-kin, pronouns: *clang*/oh/fuck•

Fuck, this actually does sound like a legit name. Sweden/Denmark?

2
Guaymaster•

Probably Finland, Estonia, Hungary or the Basque Country, with their alien languages.

1
MessierCode201Uniquekin•

Oh? I thought woman was based off a greek word with the "wo" referri g to womb and "man" as in man and those to together basically say "man with a womb". Site was probs bullshitting anyway.

3†
LerrisHarrington•

The site was on crack.

Woman is old English, and womb is is not greek, its German.

12
GullibleGilbert•

I'm German and can't think of any word relating to womb.

4
LerrisHarrington•

Not a linguist, just saying what google told me.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
90hagr15•

Germanic, not German.

4
maistir_aisling•

I hope you haven't been bringing that up as a factoid in pub conversations, because it's bollocks.

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MessierCode201Uniquekin•

Not at pubs. I still did it three times at least.

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cblasfemiaGaius Cocktavian, First Shitlord of Alera•

That's a belief that's commonly pushed by "magic black woman" hotep and Nation of Islam types. Same idiots who think white people aren't human because human means hue-man (never mind that black isn't a hue...). There was a post about that kind of stuff in here a few days ago.

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MessierCode201Uniquekin•

I actually read it before the SJW era. Someone trolled and it worked.

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cblasfemiaGaius Cocktavian, First Shitlord of Alera•

Hoteps and Nation of Islam are distinct from the Tumblr Social Justice crowd though. Besides a bunch of ideological differences (NoI can be incredibly misogynist and homophobic) they also predate them by about 50 years.

1
getbackjoe94•

You know the person he responded to probably responded with something like "lol look at this guy mansplaining to me"

3
Makapi88•

So, a female werewolf is wifewolf?

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cannibalsox•

GHOMON "earthly" I have a new favorite word.

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schmalexandra•

But, regardless of origin, it seems as though male pronouns seems to be "default" and female pronouns are "modification of default".

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JestyerAverageJoeTriggered Attack Helicopter-Kin•

Do you have any proof for that at all?

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ben3759ДА/ НЕТ/ИГPA OKOHЧEHA•

S Wo Fe Hu Per He Man Male Man Son

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AsmodeanUnderscore•

Don't dead. Open inside.

3
ben3759ДА/ НЕТ/ИГPA OKOHЧEHA•
1