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Curiously "man" is etymologically gender neutral, where wo/wif(man) denoted the female prefix for man, and the male dropped what would otherwise be were(man), s
by croon 11mo ago
Curiously "man" is etymologically gender neutral, where wo/wif(man) denoted the female prefix for man, and the male dropped what would otherwise be were(man), seen in for example werewolf, which is gendered.
- throw-the-towel 11mo agoSo a female werewolf would be a wowulf then? Cool!
- croon 11mo agoThere is discussion on whether wer/e usage in werewolf has further/other roots, but assuming consensus landing on my GP, then yes!
- nacozarina 11mo agowodude
- binary132 11mo agoso you’re saying a woman is just a female man? that’s crazy, dude…
- SAI_Peregrinus 11mo agoYes, "man" is etymologically a person, "woman" is a female person, and "wereman" is a male person. Over time "were" got dropped, but "wo" got kept, so "man" is either a gender-neutral person or a male person, distinguished based on context. E.g. "mankind" is gender-neutral.
- binary132 11mo agoyes I was making a funny
- hashar 11mo ago« mann » comes from Old English and stands for a human being. « wïfmann », literally "female human", led to « wife ». « were » means man and comes from Germanic and I don't think « weremann » has ever been a thing.
- binary132 11mo agoBlew my mind when I found out “world” is a direct derivative of the word “were”.
- AdhemarVandamme 11mo ago“world” is derived from “were” + “eald” (old), and meant “the age of humans”, which was distinguished from the age of the Gods, when the Æsir and Vanir dominated, and the age of the Jötnar. I find it interesting how the term shifted from a (mythical) temporal concept to a spatial concept, to now often a social concept (e.g. the Fourth World).