When 'Slut' Just Won't Do

Let me hasten to add I'm not calling anyone a slut, just enjoying the fact that Josh Marshall seems to have come up with a new term for what he endearingly calls "serially sexually questing women."

For those not paying attention to politics, two South Carolina men set aside their manners and Southern charm to claim they had had sex with Republican gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley.

Marshall, having already identified the Mark Sanford neologism "hiking the Appalachian Trail" to cover for an affair, says he'd be honored to be credited with inventing "manizer."

That takes us to Language Log, who writes, "there's a lexical lacuna here.  A male politician who is prone to out-of-wedlock hookups would be called a womanizer, but there seems to be no appropriate equivalent for a female. The term slut, for example, has connotations that are entirely inappropriate for a case of this kind. So Josh's attempt to coin manizer is an entirely rational move, though I'm not sure it will catch on."

And so we get, once again, to the very different attitudes toward the sexual behavior of men or women. At another time, I might have gone off on a harangue. Tonight, it's an interesting point of language.

But I do get to use the "sex" tag for this posting.

The Yo Yo Debate

Language Log and Mr.Verb have been writing about pronouns, specifically the matter of whether "yo" has become a gender-neutral pronoun.

Something to Read, for Fun

Bored? Looking for good things to read?
Try Laurie at Life With Three Dogs for her "hack" series.
If you want to feel like a total failure--and working nights and weekends and having to share desk space with a slob isn't enough--try Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age.

If you're seriously interested in Iranian politics, read this.

Learn more about Pangea Day

Deer, frightened by wildfires, move to the roadside.

Maurreen Skowran, well known to ACES members, is going on a new and very different direction from where many people are going in the mainstream media. Her journey is fascinating; Check it out.
Where would we be without Language Log to explain these important issues?

Thinking of Things

I admit that I always, always thought saying was, “If you think BLAH BLAH BLAH, then you’ve got another thing coming.” I know for a fact that’s what was said in my house as a kid, and usually carried a bit of a threat—something bad was going to happen if Action X was pursued.

Evidently, it’s “you’ve got another THINK coming.”
Over at Metafilter, a huge argument has broken out about the correct phrase. The two heavy hitters, Language Log and Language Hat have weighed in; the former has a posting just this weekend on the matter. I’ve borrowed his newspaper citation but go read his postings, then check out the argument over at Metafilter.

Don’t be deterred by the “.99999...=1” that is the original reason for the posting and pops up throughout the discussion.

Metafilter must have a lot of copy editors as members.