The implication that these people think “human” doesn’t include nonbinary people is telling.
Friendly reminder that the words man and woman are not related in English. As in, woman did not take the word man and add ‘wo’ to it.
Man started out as werman in old English, and woman started out as wīfman. The ‘man’ bit in both of these words means person. The ‘wer’ bit in werman gave us words like ‘werewolf’ - literally man-wolf. The ‘wīf’ part eventually became the word ‘wife’. Over time the word man lost the ‘wer’ bit and the word ‘wīfman’ eventually morphed into the word woman.
This is a linguistics speed run, but it’s why those terfy things with the word man crossed out are so ridiculous to me. Like where they go “woman” “human” etc. Because they love to ignore that the word man existing in any context is not a threat to them.
They even did this to cities like Manchester, England, claiming that the word ‘man’ in Manchester referred to men. It actually refers to breasts. The river Irwell in Manchester used to be known to the Celts as ‘Mamm’, meaning breast and probably relating to a river goddess. The Romans got there, asked the locals what they call it, and then added ‘castrum’, for fort. As the Romans built a fort down in modern day Castlefield. Mammcastrum became Manchester over time.
So yeah, I don’t even trust benign popular feminist ‘activism’ that goes around performatively removing the word man from things, because most often, it has nothing to do with the gender of man, and it just a word that happens to include those three letters. Yknow. Instead of helping vulnerable women, TERFs love to pretend they’re doing something smart by editing words with man in them.
Ramble over but that’s my ten cents
all very good info but can we go back to the part where Manchester means BREAST FORT???!
Award-winning comedians and broadcasters Neil DelamereandDave Moore are launching a new podcast next week called "Why would you tell me that?”, seeking out incredible things they think everyone, including their co-host, should know! In each episode, with the help of a genuine expert, one of them answers the question, “Why would you tell me that?”
I had the great fortune of being interviewed by Neil and Dave for the first season of their podcast! We talked about everything from different ways of counting in the world’s languages, to Celtic influences on other languages, to some of the crazy grammatical things that different languages do. Check out the trailer for the podcast above, and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the episode!
Interested in having me appear on your show or do an interview? Get in touch!
The field of linguistics has a sometimes fraught relationship with missionary organizations like the Wycliffe Bible Translators or the Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL).
Here’s a little background what these organizations do, and how they relate to the field of linguistics.
You can also read a special issue of the journal Language about the Summer Institute of Linguistics and its impact on the field here:
