4 ms·

I'm reminded how, last year, at work, they changed the length limits on performance reviews from characters to words. They found that character limits resulted

by cbhl 8y ago

I'm reminded how, last year, at work, they changed the length limits on performance reviews from characters to words. They found that character limits resulted in men having more room to express themselves than women -- "she" is longer than "he"; "girl" is longer than "guy", and "female" is longer than "male". Twitter also has interesting per-country dynamics because it uses a character limit. In Chinese or Japanese, 140 characters can express more words than in English.

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
^ I also find it culturally interesting that basically every female descriptor I can think of is more characters than the male counterpart.
- jMyles 8y ago
  That's because most of them are modifiers "wo"-men, "fe"-male, etc. Which really is pretty demeaning if you think about it. Over the years, there have been efforts in feminist and academic circles to introduce alternate spellings that are not derived this way. [0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn
  - ultraluminous 8y ago
    Genuine question and not some MRA trolling, but how is that demeaning? How would the etymology of English pronouns would be demeaning to anyone?
    - deckar01 8y ago
      The etymology of "woman" is very demeaning. It literally means "wife of man" or "servant". https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > The etymology of "woman" is very demeaning. It literally means "wife of man" or "servant". Your own source disagrees with you; while it does say that it came from a word formed from “wif” plus “man”, “wif” didn't mean what “wife” means now but what ”woman” means now, and “man” meant what “person” means now (which is among the current meanings of “man”, too.) The literal meaning of the compound is “woman person”. It's true that the compound “wifman” was used both for “woman” and “female servant”, but it's worth noting that the modern English word “man” includes among its meanings (and has for centuries) both “male person” and “male servant” (the latter being most commonly used preceded by a possessive indicating whose male servant is being referred to), so that the old “wifman” was a pretty exact equivalent of the modern “man” ignoring the (semantic, not grammatical) gender neutral senses of the latter.
      - zyx321 8y ago
        If you click the link for "man" it lists "servant" as one of the Old English meanings, so it stands to reason that a word consisting of the terms for "female" and "servant" would mean a "female servant". Remember that back in the day being a servant used to be the default for most people.
    - Jeaye 8y ago
      Seems like a thoughtful and helpful response to me, including a wiki link.
  - SaidinWoT 8y ago
    They've certainly come to appear that way, but in female/male (and, to a lesser extent, woman/man) the etymology is distinct. Female comes through Old French "femelle", which ultimately traces back to Latin "femina" (where we also get "feminine", et al.).[0] Male comes through Old French "masle", derived from Latin "mas" (from which we get "masculine").[1] It does appear that the ultimate transformation that aligned their spellings _does_ come from the many-centuries-old belief that they shared a common root (see the article on "female"). Woman was indeed a modifier on "man", originally "wifman", but at a time when "man" was almost exclusively in the sense of a human being (e.g., "mankind"). Prior to that, the sexes were "wer" (as in "werewolf") and "wif".[2] A couple centuries after "wifman" is first attested (around which time "werman" was also present), "wer" died off in favor of "man" and we ended up with the roots of our modern words.[3] None of this to say that people should not continue evolving the language - the modern connotation and perception is far more important in informing how things continue to change. Just hoping to point out that the words actually _weren't_ derived that way. Your point does, of course, still stand in the facts that "female" was modified to resemble "male" and "wifman" remained when "werman" died out, but this doesn't seem (to me) as demeaning as the idea that they have always been modifiers of the words referring exclusively to male humans. [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841 https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841 [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/male#etymonline_v_42792 https://www.etymonline.com/word/male#etymonline_v_42792 [2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman#etymonline_v_10826 https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman#etymonline_v_10826 [3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/man#etymonline_v_6766 https://www.etymonline.com/word/man#etymonline_v_6766
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Terr_ 8y ago
    > Which really is pretty demeaning if you think about it. Not really: Languages have millions of positive modifiers (including for higher social status) so why assume (and indirectly promote) these ones as automatically pejorative? Connotations are unrelated to length. Super(wo)man isn't "lesser" just because it takes longer to say, the "default" isn't automatically best.
kdamken 8y ago
That is an interesting point I had never considered.
TACIXAT 8y ago
I don't get the performance review thing, do people talk about themselves in the third person? I guess for peer reviews you would have less space if you were reviewing a woman, but it doesn't make sense for talking about yourself.

by cbhl 8y ago

Wowfunhappy 8y ago

^ I also find it culturally interesting that basically every female descriptor I can think of is more characters than the male counterpart.

jMyles 8y ago
That's because most of them are modifiers "wo"-men, "fe"-male, etc. Which really is pretty demeaning if you think about it. Over the years, there have been efforts in feminist and academic circles to introduce alternate spellings that are not derived this way. [0] 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Womyn
- ultraluminous 8y ago
  Genuine question and not some MRA trolling, but how is that demeaning? How would the etymology of English pronouns would be demeaning to anyone?
  - deckar01 8y ago
    The etymology of "woman" is very demeaning. It literally means "wife of man" or "servant". https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > The etymology of "woman" is very demeaning. It literally means "wife of man" or "servant". Your own source disagrees with you; while it does say that it came from a word formed from “wif” plus “man”, “wif” didn't mean what “wife” means now but what ”woman” means now, and “man” meant what “person” means now (which is among the current meanings of “man”, too.) The literal meaning of the compound is “woman person”. It's true that the compound “wifman” was used both for “woman” and “female servant”, but it's worth noting that the modern English word “man” includes among its meanings (and has for centuries) both “male person” and “male servant” (the latter being most commonly used preceded by a possessive indicating whose male servant is being referred to), so that the old “wifman” was a pretty exact equivalent of the modern “man” ignoring the (semantic, not grammatical) gender neutral senses of the latter.
    - zyx321 8y ago
      If you click the link for "man" it lists "servant" as one of the Old English meanings, so it stands to reason that a word consisting of the terms for "female" and "servant" would mean a "female servant". Remember that back in the day being a servant used to be the default for most people.
  - Jeaye 8y ago
    Seems like a thoughtful and helpful response to me, including a wiki link.
- SaidinWoT 8y ago
  They've certainly come to appear that way, but in female/male (and, to a lesser extent, woman/man) the etymology is distinct. Female comes through Old French "femelle", which ultimately traces back to Latin "femina" (where we also get "feminine", et al.).[0] Male comes through Old French "masle", derived from Latin "mas" (from which we get "masculine").[1] It does appear that the ultimate transformation that aligned their spellings _does_ come from the many-centuries-old belief that they shared a common root (see the article on "female"). Woman was indeed a modifier on "man", originally "wifman", but at a time when "man" was almost exclusively in the sense of a human being (e.g., "mankind"). Prior to that, the sexes were "wer" (as in "werewolf") and "wif".[2] A couple centuries after "wifman" is first attested (around which time "werman" was also present), "wer" died off in favor of "man" and we ended up with the roots of our modern words.[3] None of this to say that people should not continue evolving the language - the modern connotation and perception is far more important in informing how things continue to change. Just hoping to point out that the words actually _weren't_ derived that way. Your point does, of course, still stand in the facts that "female" was modified to resemble "male" and "wifman" remained when "werman" died out, but this doesn't seem (to me) as demeaning as the idea that they have always been modifiers of the words referring exclusively to male humans. [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841 https://www.etymonline.com/word/female#etymonline_v_5841 [1] https://www.etymonline.com/word/male#etymonline_v_42792 https://www.etymonline.com/word/male#etymonline_v_42792 [2] https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman#etymonline_v_10826 https://www.etymonline.com/word/woman#etymonline_v_10826 [3] https://www.etymonline.com/word/man#etymonline_v_6766 https://www.etymonline.com/word/man#etymonline_v_6766
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Terr_ 8y ago
  > Which really is pretty demeaning if you think about it. Not really: Languages have millions of positive modifiers (including for higher social status) so why assume (and indirectly promote) these ones as automatically pejorative? Connotations are unrelated to length. Super(wo)man isn't "lesser" just because it takes longer to say, the "default" isn't automatically best.

kdamken 8y ago

That is an interesting point I had never considered.

TACIXAT 8y ago

I don't get the performance review thing, do people talk about themselves in the third person? I guess for peer reviews you would have less space if you were reviewing a woman, but it doesn't make sense for talking about yourself.