Hubby and Hussy - Pejoration with a touch of Sexism 03

Still going on about pejoration...

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. And on this blog I am picking up words that refer to women which have undergone pejoration (contrasting it with the counterpart male words). So far, master and mistress and bachelor and spinster.

This time, hubby and hussy.

These two words are both short form of husband and housewife. Here are the definitions from OED.

hubby : (informal) a husband.  Origin late 17th century, familiar abbreviation

hussy : impudent or immoral girl or woman.  'that brazen little hussy!'
from Middle English, contraction for 'housewife' (the original sense); the current sense dates from the mid 17th century.

And look at this list of synonyms for hussy...

adulteress, fornicatress, loose woman, strumpet, trollop, slut, jade...

All the insulting words to call a woman are here, and no trace of the original meaning. Both hubby and hussy started off as contractions for longer words, but why?! Why did only 'hussy' become a victim of pejoration?! What happened in the mid 17th century? Does execution of Charles I (1649) and the rise of the Commonwealth have anything to do with this? A voice from a historian on this matter is very welcome.

Bachelor and Spinster - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 02

I remember learning in my English classes in primary school the different nouns for male and female of the same jobs or status; actor - actress, duke - duchess, master - mistress, bachelor - spinster, etc.

Later, I learnt that after your undergraduate studies, you get your bachelor's degree, and your graduate studies, your master's; and both degrees happen to be called by nouns which also refer to male status.

In my very naiive innocent mind, I wondered why when woman finishes her undergraduate or graduate studies, she is not awarded spinster's or mistress' degree. Forgive me, I was only 9 or 10.

Looking up the word 'bachelor' in the dictionary of etymology, there are definitions as follows:
1. (a 1300) a young knight, a young man
2. (a 1300) an unmarried man
3. (a 1376) a degree, a person who has been awarded a degree by a college or a university.
4. (1418 - 1809) a young member of the guild

I looked up the female equivalent, spinster.
1. (a 1376) a woman who spins wool
2. (1380) an unmarried woman
3. (1636) a spider
4. (1719) an unmarried woman who has passed the age of marrying and is unlikely to get married. Old maid.

Clearly, 'spinster' had undergone pejoration. The Oxford American Dictionary admits in its definition that it is derogatory.

First the word referred to a job, a person who spins. Long before the Industrial Revolution, spinning wool was a common job for an unmarried woman, so the job also denoted a single young woman. It was used in legal documents too. However, around late 18th century, the definition started o include older unmarried women or women who chose not o marry, and today only the most lately added meaning survives.

The word 'spinster' does not carry the neutral sense anymore...

Bachelor party sounds all wonderful and exciting, but how about 'spinster party'? What would you imagine from here? Moans, cries, grudges...

Language sexism...

Master and Mistress - Pejoration with a touch of sexism 01

Meaning of words change in time, some positively, some negatively. This change in the meaning, I consider, is the reflection of how people think about the world, and language is what we use to describe and understand the world we live in.

I am a fairly neutral person and do not take any extreme position in ideas and philosophy, but I do get a little sensitive with words that talk about women in a demeaning way.

Pejoration is a downgrading of the meaning of a word. The word was once neutral in meaning, but along the history, it went down the hill. I feel that words referring to women tend to undergo pejoration.


'Master' and 'Mistress'

'Master' means, since the time of Old English, a teacher, and later becomes to mean a person having control or authority. Around 14th century, a scholar degree, and in 16th century, the head of the household.

'Mistress' is the female equivalent to 'master'. In 14th century it meant a female home teacher, a governess, but that definition is now obsolete. It also means a woman having control or authority, who is the head of the household, same as 'master'. It was also used as an honorific to address a gentlewoman, and up to 18th century, to address an unmarried lady.

Around 15th century, it started to mean 'a woman who has a continuing extramarital sexual relationship with a man'.

Now how did that come into the definition? I imagine from the original meaning the word something like this -  Around medieval times. A mistress works as a home teacher in a wealthy family. It does not matter which seduces first, but somehow the master of the house and the mistress become very intimate, and secretly start a relationship. Because she is the governess, she works in the family until the child grows up, fairly many years, meaning the extramarital relationship last for years.

Today, this meaning of 'adulteress' seems to be the one that first comes into a lot of people's minds when they hear the word. The definition of 'master' is unstained.

Extramarital relationship is possible with two people. Why did only 'mistress' undergo this pejoration, and not the male equivalent? ...Sexism!

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The Kenkyusha Dictionary of English Etymology

"Homosexual" - a word testing the linguistic aesthetic taste

Words always succeed the event. New words are invented to refer to the things and events that have come into being and influence our life.

The word "homosexual" was translated from German and entered English in 1892, to describe a person sexually attracted to a person of the same sex. A little later to the introduction of the word "homosexual", a trial accusing Oscar Wilde for sodomy was the talk of the town, and I think this new word must have been used in the trial.

H. Havelock Ellis (1859 - 1939), a physician and a writer who studied human sexuality, expressed his abhorrence to this new word. He said in his book:

'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it. It is, however, convenient, and now widely used. 'Homegenic' has been suggested as a substitute. (H. Havelock Ellis, "Studies in Psychology" 1897)

I am sure Oscar Wilde, an aesthete who had "found it harder and harder every day to live up to his blue china", would have shared the same revulsion to the word 'homosexual' when he heard it used in his trial. The word 'sodomy', with its biblical origin, would have suited Wilde's taste far more than the newly invented word in describing his sexual orientation.

How come the word 'homosexual' is barbarously hybrid?

 'Homo' comes from Greek and 'sexual' is Latin origin. 

You might think, 'is that all?!' but I highly recognize the aesthetic taste of Ellis; fusing things of different origin is like eating strawberry jam on rice. Agh!

Japanese, too, are not so sensitive to this kind of linguistic aesthetic taste. From our earliest history, we are so used to adopting and adapting words and letters from foreign languages. There are even some words that have become so familiar in our vocabulary that not many think that it has a foreign origin.

'Tempura-don' is a name of a typical and popular Japanese dish, and it has tempura on a bowl of rice. The word 'tempura' comes from Spanish word 'tempero', and I think not many Japanese people would know that, and '-don' is a short form of 'domburi' which means 'a bowl' in Japanese.

'Tempura-don' is actually an amalgamate word of Spanish and Japanese. 

I bet Ellis and Wilde would have abhorred the word.

Hearty welcome? Cordial reception?

No one would deny,
The English Language has transformed into the most common medium of communication over the world.

Sometimes called a "lingua franca" (a borrowing from Italian), the present state of English suggests that it is no longer a possession of any particular country, but of those who use it.

One of the factors that has pushed English into the status is its copious vocabulary, often characterised as a "cosmopolitan vocabulary." A number of Japanese has been added into the English vocabulary. For example, the latest entry was 焼きそば "yakisoba" in March 2012. (The new entry passage in OED website, after introducing some new words from Australia, says that "More exotically still, we have yakisoba n., a Japanese dish of fried wheat-flour noodles, seeing enough clear usage as an English word to merit inclusion in the dictionary."

The "international" character of the English vocabulary had its origin back even in the earlier time when English came into Britain. Historically speaking, English has mingled with many other languages such as Latin, Celt, Old Norse, French.

In particular, the mixture with French has broadened the potential range of lexicon: As the language of Germanic root, an encounter with French meant that with the so-called "Romance" language, an "etymologically" different line of language.

What's important in considering the lexical richness of English is how differently each word carries meanings/implications, even if the core of the sense is nearly the same.

For instance, how does a phrase "hearty welcome" sound to you, as compared with "cordial reception"? Do these phrases sound differently? Actually, they sound quite differently depending on the context. A close look at the "etymology" leads you to understand why and how they differ. Here is an interesting clip that tells the story behind the phrases.