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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"'>Stefano wrote on 2/25/12:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div><p class=MsoNormal>2012/2/24 <natasha@natasha.cc><o:p></o:p></p><p>It seems that the wifey-poo was a revamping of the word:<o:p></o:p></p><p>"The <a href="http://wiki/Old_English" target="_blank" title="Old English">Old English</a> <b>wifman</b> meant "female human" (<b>werman</b> meant "male human". <b>Man</b> or <b>mann</b> 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").<sup><a href="#135afa6a20c19cc9_135accbaee202aa0_cite_">[1]</a></sup> 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")."<o:p></o:p></p><p>Really weird explanataion ...<o:p></o:p></p><p><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>“</span>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".<br><br><span style='color:black'>“</span>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".<br><br><span style='color:black'>“</span>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. :-)<span style='color:black'>”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>Lol </span><span style='font-family:Wingdings;color:black'>J</span><span style='color:black'> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black'>I’m still stuck by the reference the the “medial labial” connotation …</span><br><br><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:black'><a href="http://www.natasha.cc/"><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Natasha Vita-More</span></a><br></span><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>PhD Researcher, Univ. of Plymouth, UK<br>Chairman, Humanity+ </span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'>Co-Editor, <i>The Transhumanist Reader<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>