I'll Be Darn

[NOIRTRASH]

Those who know swear the modern meaning of GENDER came along in the 1950s when a perfesser changed the meaning to biological sex.

But I found GENDER in DAVID COPPERFIELD, and the usage is modern.

Who knew.

 

[ishtat]

The OED says that gender was used in the copulative sense as early as 1634, but unusually they do not have a quote to support that.

Engender as in engendering feelings was used as early as 1450 apparently.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The OED says that gender was used in the copulative sense as early as 1634, but unusually they do not have a quote to support that.

Engender as in engendering feelings was used as early as 1450 apparently.

Gender started long ago. At first it was what male and female animals did together.

 

[NicoleZ]

Sex used to be defined as "the sum of the characteristics that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive function" whereas now it's "sexual activity, especially sexual intercourse".

Gender was originally "a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms"

So what used to be distinct scientific terms of separate sciences (Biology and Grammar respectively) has been perverted by laymen like almost everything else. Laymen such as that perfesser should be shot before they can inflict such horrendous damage through their ignorance!

 

[jezzaz]

I was always brought up to understand that gender is outward appearance and sex was the reality beneath the clothes.

Now, if we are getting on the bandwagon about the misappropriation of words, I put forward "Organic". It's new meaning - meaning no biological improvements or helpers (IE, no pesticides on this food!) is utter bollocks. Organic means 'derived from living materials' - basically it means "made from cells".

This misappropriation does annoy me, since it's not even close to what Organic actually means.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The dictionary is full of misappropriated words. Argue for quarrel is my favorite. An argument is the logical trail you create to warrant justification for an opinion. Opinion is now misappropriated, too.

 

[sr71plt]

The verbs "argue" and "quarrel" aren't related in Webster's dictionary. One doesn't mention the other in its definition. The noun "argument" doesn't have just one meaning, as you seem to be claiming. Lots of nouns have more than one meaning. "Quarrel" is one meaning. Both words trace back to the fourteenth century in use. The noun "quarrel" doesn't include "argument" as a definition in Webster's, so the dictionary isn't claiming the two nouns are interchangeable--just that the facets of "argument" include "quarrel" in one of that noun's meanings.

It's a question of knowing how to use the dictionary.

 

[NicoleZ]

Now, if we are getting on the bandwagon about the misappropriation of words, I put forward "Organic". It's new meaning - meaning no biological improvements or helpers (IE, no pesticides on this food!) is utter bollocks. Organic means 'derived from living materials' - basically it means "made from cells".

This misappropriation does annoy me, since it's not even close to what Organic actually means.

Murder Must Advertise, to paraphrase Dorothy L. Sayers.

Whenever people have a need to advertise something, be it themselves, a product or a new nation, they tend do so trough "innovative" use of words and language, the vehicle with which to define a new identity.

Sometimes, the search for and maintenance of a separate identity can become utterly pythonesque such as when Americans criticsise certain dialects of English for being incomprehensible because they tend to drop their "aitches". Well, then Yanks, what the fuck is UUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRBZ?!?

Talk about perversion!

 

[NOIRTRASH]

More and more I gotta check the etymology of words misappropriated with strange meanings.

 

[KindofHere]

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