Misspelling Words On Purpose
Jun. 20th, 2006 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badstarSo...I'm on an email list (several of them actually, but for now- one in particular) where I had mentioned the book I just posted a review for and also happened to make a comment that it drives me berserk to see words purposefully misspelled to make a point or further an agenda, examples in question: the misspelling of "woman": "womyn", "wimmin", and worst/cheesiest of all "wombyn" (Someone else suggested "we-moon", which made my eyes bleed).
...and of course I was admonished for saying such things because "some need it to determine their own empowerment" (actually accused of putting down people, which I never did). Sorry but I'd have to say that if someone *needs* purposeful misspellings and can't find their "empowerment" through more substantial means, there's a problem.
I agree that a LOT of gross injustices have been commeitted...and continue to be committed, and something needs to be done, but something this superficial is not going to help anyone. Call me crazy, but purposefully misspelling a word isn't going to provide anything besides perhaps a momentary "so there", you can't tell me that your status is being equalized because you spell it "womyn" or "herstory" and I hypothesize that it may be more detrimental than helpful because a lot of people just aren't going to take you seriously if you insist on misspelling a perfectly valid word. (Myself included)
(By the way, here's a bit of etymology:
A Dictionary Of Euphemisms And Other Doubletalk, by Hugh Rawson, has this (among other things) to say about the word "woman":
"Woman" itself has a curious history, which may be of some consolation to female readers, since it shows that they are not, linguistically at least, derivatives of the other sex. "Woman," superficial appearance to the contrary, does not come from "man," but from the Old English "wif-mann," where "wif" meant "female" and "mann" meant a human being of either sex. As late as 1752, the philosopher David Hume could use "man" in the original sense, when contending that "...there is in all men, both male and female, a desire and power of generation more active than is ever universally exerted." What happened as the language evolved, of course, was that males gradually arrogated the generic "mann" to themselves, while the old word for female, "wif," was diminished into wife, [...] Today, some men still insist that when they use "man" in such constructions as "The proper study of Mankind is Man," or "Man is a tool-making animal," they do not intend to imply that their sex is the superior, but they are fighting the tide of our time.)
The word "woman" does not opress women.
And hey...I wonder how many feminists actually know that the word "vagina" was a Latin word for "sword sheath"???
...and of course I was admonished for saying such things because "some need it to determine their own empowerment" (actually accused of putting down people, which I never did). Sorry but I'd have to say that if someone *needs* purposeful misspellings and can't find their "empowerment" through more substantial means, there's a problem.
I agree that a LOT of gross injustices have been commeitted...and continue to be committed, and something needs to be done, but something this superficial is not going to help anyone. Call me crazy, but purposefully misspelling a word isn't going to provide anything besides perhaps a momentary "so there", you can't tell me that your status is being equalized because you spell it "womyn" or "herstory" and I hypothesize that it may be more detrimental than helpful because a lot of people just aren't going to take you seriously if you insist on misspelling a perfectly valid word. (Myself included)
(By the way, here's a bit of etymology:
A Dictionary Of Euphemisms And Other Doubletalk, by Hugh Rawson, has this (among other things) to say about the word "woman":
"Woman" itself has a curious history, which may be of some consolation to female readers, since it shows that they are not, linguistically at least, derivatives of the other sex. "Woman," superficial appearance to the contrary, does not come from "man," but from the Old English "wif-mann," where "wif" meant "female" and "mann" meant a human being of either sex. As late as 1752, the philosopher David Hume could use "man" in the original sense, when contending that "...there is in all men, both male and female, a desire and power of generation more active than is ever universally exerted." What happened as the language evolved, of course, was that males gradually arrogated the generic "mann" to themselves, while the old word for female, "wif," was diminished into wife, [...] Today, some men still insist that when they use "man" in such constructions as "The proper study of Mankind is Man," or "Man is a tool-making animal," they do not intend to imply that their sex is the superior, but they are fighting the tide of our time.)
The word "woman" does not opress women.
And hey...I wonder how many feminists actually know that the word "vagina" was a Latin word for "sword sheath"???
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 04:15 am (UTC)when I read, my brain says the words out loud in my head. when a word is spelled other than as it should be, my brain automaticaly mispronounces the word...I can't even begin to textually represent how "womyn" sounds in my head.
(that's my personal, not-so-relevant-to-the-argument problem with it)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 04:25 am (UTC)"-iyn" it's like a short i sound, plus the consonant y sound (like "y" would sound at the beginning of a word, not the vowel sound like "why") I can't think of a word in the english language that properly contains the sound I'm trying to explain....lol
Sword sheath!?
Date: 2006-06-21 06:30 am (UTC)Dang, I like learning something new every day. >;-D
Re: Sword sheath!?
Date: 2006-06-21 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 11:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 11:40 am (UTC)from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-06-21 01:24 pm (UTC)ymmv as usuall.
Re: from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-06-21 05:29 pm (UTC)Re: from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-06-22 09:26 am (UTC)Now that you mention it...yikes!
Re: from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-07-11 03:37 pm (UTC)Re: from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-07-11 04:10 pm (UTC)i went to the OED
http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/50065658?query_type=word&queryword=disease&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=c0I9-tIK7AA-4422&hilite=50065658
eeks! i hope that link goes through!
at any rate, it looks like the hypen is coming back into use to differentiate between "not being at ease" and "being sick"
Re: from nonfluffy pagans
Date: 2006-07-11 04:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 03:37 pm (UTC)Someone else suggested "we-moon"
Surely I can't be the only person thinking "so wait, your gender is defined by the fact that you walk around mooning people?"
"Herstory" is my personal pet peeve, because it reveals a complete ignorance of the word's origin. It comes from the French word "histoire" which simply means "story". "His" means nothing in French, so the word "history" hardly reveals a cultural bias against women.
Personally, I get around the problem by calling them all "chicks".
hehe
Date: 2006-06-21 05:25 pm (UTC);-)
Re: hehe
Date: 2006-06-21 06:13 pm (UTC)Re: hehe
Date: 2006-06-22 11:50 am (UTC)Re: hehe
Date: 2006-06-22 05:08 pm (UTC)tres drole
Date: 2006-06-22 07:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 05:28 pm (UTC)and french being a latin-based language, I think somehow took "histoire" from somehting in the latin language.
but the romans were very bad to their women, therefore the latin-based languages are all sexist and oppressive and must therefore be abolished, bwa hahahaha
no subject
Date: 2006-06-21 05:29 pm (UTC)dunno, but the thought never crossed my mind.
:-(
Date: 2006-06-22 12:36 am (UTC)not your fault. i like reading your essays, theyre always very informative. i just have problems.
Language and empowement
Date: 2006-06-22 03:16 am (UTC)For example: respectful term went from Negro to Black to Afro-American to African-American (except for Carribean Islands people), though Black is still considered to be generally acceptable. How many of us would actually call any of our black friends Negro, even if it was considered respectful in the 1950s?
While this has led to some great strides in how we associate with many people of different races (and to a lesser extent, sexual orientations), it also has a bizarre extreme of what we commonly call political correctness.
Our language constantly evolves (note 2000 year evolution of sword sheath, mentioned above) and is changed by the environment we live in. But real empowerment and social change does not lie merely in changing words to a more respectful tone. It is more about using those changes to develop a root cause for improving society that many people can see. Most Americans (men *and* women) don't care where the word came from in Ancient Latin - they either don't care (90%) or if they do, are likely more consumed with winning more achievable feminine goals: like breaking through glass ceilings, defeating stereotypes or similar.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 05:18 am (UTC)What sort of extremely negative attitude toward men must a "womyn" have that they would allow three little letters to bother them so much? That they can only achieve empowerment by obsessively erasing any and all even vague references to men in the language (someone brought up "herstory" which I loathe, have you heard "shero" yet?)
Not to mention the arrogance I see in this. Its not enough anymore to have equal rights, equal treatment? Now we must alter the entire English language to suit you?
One of the many reasons I call myself egalitarian is I refuse to be included among these fanatics.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 05:29 am (UTC)but yeah, i caught your email. i'm not too jazzed about what some of the people have to say. i don't expect it to change. but ya know, i gotta say something. i have a stake in this too, dammit.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 05:46 am (UTC)I'm glad you said something, you have as much a right to your opinion as the "womyn" do theirs (and apparently a bit more maturity when it comes to dealing with opposing opinions). I think there are probably several people on the list who would agree, but just don't want to say anything for fear of getting their head taken off. :-)
Re: "shero"
Date: 2006-06-22 09:31 am (UTC)