4 ms·

I don't know. Some words are just attached to each sex, and that's just a part of language. We don't say waitperson over waiter or waitress. Something that is b

I don't know. Some words are just attached to each sex, and that's just a part of language. We don't say waitperson over waiter or waitress. Something that is both attached to a gender and insulting is by no means insulting someone for their gender or insulting a gender overall. English is definitely one of the least sexualizing languages of the Romance Languages. In French or Spanish, everything would be attached to a gender, but that doesn't mean that the words define the gender themselves. Nobody in Spain thinks that chairs are 'where women belong' or anything like that.

geoelectric 14y ago
Well, no, we say server, because server is gender-neutral. Compare steward/stewardess with flight attendant. And some servers will get mighty angry if you call them a waitress. I don't necessarily think that response is justified when no offense is actually meant. But the point is that there has been an identifiable trend in our language towards moving away from gender-specific terms for roles that shouldn't otherwise have a relevance to gender. I'd argue this movement is overdue for epithets. I think "asshole," "asshat," "assclown," really anything in the venerable ass family, makes for an ideal gender-neutral epithet. We should use these more often! Edit: typo
- gdwatson 14y ago
  That's always seemed an odd quirk of the restaurant industry to me. Server to refer to a person sounds stilted to my ear; a server is a computer to me, but a waiter or a waitress is a person. So a sincere question: Why would someone be offended to be described as a waitress?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
- youngtaff 14y ago
  Server is a US thing (maybe AU, NZ too?), we don't use it in the UK. I find server to refer to a waitress and waiter a really odd term, almost de-humanising but that might just be a cultural difference.
  - Draco6slayer 14y ago
    To be entirely honest, I've never heard server used in the US, and a few of my friends are waiters and waitresses.
WildUtah 14y ago
English is not a romance language. It acquired quite a lot of French words and a few grammar patterns after an unfortunate event in 1066 but remains a distinctly Germanic-family language. Most of the French grammar bits have been discarded in quotidian speech long ago; how often do you hear the subjunctive voice used in English? English is distinct from other Germanic languages, though, in the same way. Most European languages of any stripe are gender-heavy while English mostly applies grammatical gender mostly only to vehicles and individual sexually dimorphic animals.

geoelectric 14y ago

Well, no, we say server, because server is gender-neutral. Compare steward/stewardess with flight attendant. And some servers will get mighty angry if you call them a waitress. I don't necessarily think that response is justified when no offense is actually meant. But the point is that there has been an identifiable trend in our language towards moving away from gender-specific terms for roles that shouldn't otherwise have a relevance to gender. I'd argue this movement is overdue for epithets. I think "asshole," "asshat," "assclown," really anything in the venerable ass family, makes for an ideal gender-neutral epithet. We should use these more often! Edit: typo

gdwatson 14y ago
That's always seemed an odd quirk of the restaurant industry to me. Server to refer to a person sounds stilted to my ear; a server is a computer to me, but a waiter or a waitress is a person. So a sincere question: Why would someone be offended to be described as a waitress?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
youngtaff 14y ago
Server is a US thing (maybe AU, NZ too?), we don't use it in the UK. I find server to refer to a waitress and waiter a really odd term, almost de-humanising but that might just be a cultural difference.
- Draco6slayer 14y ago
  To be entirely honest, I've never heard server used in the US, and a few of my friends are waiters and waitresses.

WildUtah 14y ago

English is not a romance language. It acquired quite a lot of French words and a few grammar patterns after an unfortunate event in 1066 but remains a distinctly Germanic-family language. Most of the French grammar bits have been discarded in quotidian speech long ago; how often do you hear the subjunctive voice used in English? English is distinct from other Germanic languages, though, in the same way. Most European languages of any stripe are gender-heavy while English mostly applies grammatical gender mostly only to vehicles and individual sexually dimorphic animals.