[ExI] Rule of Law or of Men?

[Natasha Vita-More]

Stefano wrote on 2/25/12:

 

2012/2/24 <natasha at natasha.cc>

It seems that the wifey-poo was a revamping of the word:

"The Old English <http://wiki/Old_English>  wifman meant "female human"
(werman meant "male human". Man or mann had a gender neutral meaning of
"human", corresponding to Modern English "one" or "someone". However in
around 1000AD "man" started to be used more to refer to "male human", and in
the late 1200s began to inevitably displace and eradicate the original word
"werman").[1] <>  The medial labial consonants coalesced to create the
modern form "woman"; the initial element, which meant "female," underwent
semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife")."

Really weird explanataion ...

 

"Interesting, however. In German, as in Latin and Greek, we have a
comfortably generic, albeit grammaticaly masculin, form (mensch, home,
anthropos, as opposed to mann, vir, aner), but the impersonal "one" is
"man", which is closer to the male form "mann", while the French "on"
derives from the Latin "homo".

"In Italian, as in French, the male form itself comes from the generic form
"homo". But it is still not terribly mysoginist to make use of the male form
for generic. Moreover, grammars expressly state that when the gender is
unknown, you should use the masculin form, so that the possessive for one is
"his", not "one's".

"Lastly, my native Italian intuitions suggest that the PC English usage of
"his or her" could be considered in my language as unkind to the female
genter, as you should if anything say "her or his", giving precedence to the
ladies. :-)"

 

Lol J  

 

I'm still stuck by the reference the the "medial labial" connotation .



 

 <http://www.natasha.cc/> Natasha Vita-More
PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK
Chairman, Humanity+ 

Co-Editor, The Transhumanist Reader

 

 

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