Forum: Lost Stories

Just a note BLond(e) is the only English word I know of that is gendered

And I will note that I have read that blonde is becoming less common with many people using blond for both men and women.

There are hundreds of gendered English words like this. Basically any occupation that uses a different word: waiter/waitress, actor/actress, prince/princess, hero/heroine, etc.

Another common word that follows the -e suffix pattern of blond is fiancé (m) vs fiancée (f).

All of these words entered English from French after the Norman invasion. Historically there were even more like this, but many of them have been simplified to the single form over time.

A lot of people see the move to gender-free nouns (eg, mail carrier, fireperson) as part of the LGBTQ+ "culture wars," but really the process has been ongoing for centuries as the Latin & French influenced vocabulary slowly shifts into English's Germanic grammar and speaking patterns.

postman may, under some theories of grammar, be gender neutral. But the image it evokes, for almost everyone--the assumption almost everyone makes on hearing it-- is male. That's the motive for the change.

Degendering bathrooms is part of the LGBTQ culture wars. Degendering job descriptions is not. It's part of a earlier generation's culture war known as "women's lib"

You don't have women posties in the USA?

No we don't. AFIK, postman has never been common in the US.

The job title currently used by the US Postal Service is mail carrier. Not sure when they switched to that or what they used before that.

Informally, it would have been mailman in most of the US.

You don't know what you're missing. All that walking does wonders for fitness.

Not what I meant. Did you miss this? "postman has never been common in the US."

The US postal service has had female male carriers for a long time.

According to the United States Post Office archive, "the first known appointment of a woman to carry mail was on 3 April 1845, when Postmaster General Cave Johnson appointed Sarah Black to carry the mail between Charlestown Md P.O. & the Rail Road "daily or as often as requisite at $48 per annum".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_carrier

There are hundreds of gendered English words like this. Basically any occupation that uses a different word: waiter/waitress, actor/actress, prince/princess, hero/heroine, etc.

Another common word that follows the -e suffix pattern of blond is fiancé (m) vs fiancée (f).

I'll pay fiancé(e) (I had zero idea about that one) but the others are not homophones (I really hope I used the right word there).

I freely admit to having atrocious English 'skills' with chopping and changing between North American and UK and Old 'habits' / 'errors' that have never been corrected over the decades and probably even been compounded by lazy typing and over reliance on auto-correct

Oh, sorry, I didn't see homophones mentioned in your original post.

I suspect there probably are other words that fit the bill even so, but I'm better at using my vocabulary when writing than just pulling words out of the air. It's kind of difficult to research since English words don't actually have gender in the linguistic sense.

A word that you might expect to follow this rule, protégé (usually spelled without the accents), doesn't. The same spelling is used regardless of gender.

Oh how I wished English used diacriticals?

It really would make the written from so much easier for a non-native or late lerner

Here in Canada we still use diacriticals for some words. I'm not sure if that's because of the French influence via Quebec or simply the fact that many Canadians like to distance themselves culturally from the US and will hold on to archaic British spellings as long as possible.

The word that springs to mind (having nothing to do with gendered words) is résumé (which in the US is always just spelled "resume" which can be confusing out of context). I've also occasionally seen mêlée, but that's rare.

I've also occasionally seen mêlée, but that's rare.

Seems an appropriate word to use in conjunction with descriptions of ice hockey games. Or too mild?

homophones

Who do you call?

P. T. Barnum used to have a sign reading 'This way to the Egress.' People would go to see that exhibit and would find that they had exited. Thus relieving the crowds size. They had to pay again if they wanted back in.