| 词组 | authoress |
| 释义 | authoress Reader's Digest 1983 confidently informs us that "most women now regard the term authoress as demeaning." We do not presume to speak for most women; the evidence in our files suggests that the opinion of very few women has been sought for this word. Herbert Mitgang in the New York Times Book Review (19 Aug. 1979) calls the term "condescending." The use described by Mitgang—that of a South African censor banning a book by Nadine Gordimer—probably was intended to be condescending. Copperud 1970, 1980 opines that authoress has fallen into disuse—a premature observation, as examples below will demonstrate. Authoress has been the subject of commentary in print at least since 1867, when Edward S. Gould took up the cudgels. Gould's discussion seems to be a continuation of one in Alford 1866 on the subject of feminine nouns, especially those ending in -ess. (See -ess.) Alford was apparently set off by some clergyman's using governess in reference to Queen Victoria in a prayer, and he does not mention authoress. Gould ranges over several nouns ending in -ess, finding some useful and some not. Authoress he finds "superfluous" because author does not indicate sex. Ayres 1881 and Lurie 1927 simply abridge Gould's remarks. Richard Grant White 1870 finds authoress not especially objectionable, although he notes that it has been condemned by writers. Fowler 1926 also notes literary objections to the word, but he seems to find the superciliousness of the objectors more annoying than the word: • authoress is a word regarded with dislike in literary circles, on the grounds, perhaps, that sex is irrelevant to art, & that the common unliterary public has no concern with its superiors' personality. It is probably worth noting that all of these early commentators are men (and so are Bierce 1909, Utter 1916, and Krapp 1927, who also comment along the same lines). The sole exception is an unnamed literary woman cited in Lounsbury 1908 as being indignant at the designation authoress; whoever she was, she seems to have anticipated the comment of the Reader's Digest staff. Fowler, on the other hand, found authoress "a useful word." Authoress has never been what you would call an overused or even a heavily used word. The OED, which dates it back to Caxton in 1478, notes that author is the usual term, and authoress is used chiefly when the sex is being purposely emphasized. In other words, authoress replaces some periphrastic designation like woman writer or female author. The choice of one word over two seems to be the reason for authoress in these examples: • I dined with people that you never heard of, nor is it worth your while to know; an authoress and a printer —Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella, 4 Jan. 1711 • ... & this work of which I am myself the Authoress —Jane Austen, letter, 5 Apr. 1809 (she signed this letter M.A.D.) • ... the playwright, a distinguished authoress who shall also here be nameless —Cornelia Otis Skinner, New Yorker, 19 Mar. 1949 • ... the reputation that was to label her for all time to come: the first professional English authoress — Robert Phelps, introduction, Selected Writings of the Ingenious Mrs. Aphra Behn, 1950 But in a great many instances there seems to be no particular reason for picking the word, since the writer's sex is already apparent: • It is not necessary for Miss M. to be an authoress, indeed I do not think publishing at all creditable to men or women —Lord Byron, letter, 1 May 1812 • ... Miss Katherine Mayo, authoress of Mother India —Atlantic, April 1928 • ... a very famous title of an unknown play by Helmina von Chézy, the authoress of the libretto to Weber's Euryanthe —Otto Erich Deutsch, Modern Language Notes, February 1948 • Miss Rebecca West, the authoress, has made a special study —London Calling, 15 July 1954 • Their mother, the famous authoress, seems to have had great charm —W. H. Auden, New Yorker, 1 Apr. 1972 • She also is a board member of a large department-store chain; a working authoress of cookbooks — Melvin Durslag, TV Guide, 14 Apr. 1973 • ... Margaret Zellers shares some of her favorite small and special places in a country that has become second home to this globe-trotting, trustworthy authoress —Linda Gwinn, Town & Country, July 1980 In some instances the word seems somewhat pejorative: • Their heroines go through the motions of sexuality, usually wholesale, merely by way of retaliation for what their authoresses believe to be the habits of men —G. Legman, Love and Death, 1949 • ... my wife, and the women in her consciousness-raising group, and the authoresses in Ms. magazine ... have decided it's all my fault —John Updike, Playboy, January 1975 • Murdoch cares too much to play the authoress paring her fingernails —Linda Kuehl, Saturday Rev., 8 Jan. 1977 • The result is an uneasy book in which one feels that the authoress has ventured into an unfamiliar territory —Quentin Bell, Times Literary Supp., 21 Mar. 1980 Insofar as offense inheres in authoress itself and not simply in the whole class of gender-specific occupational names, it is probably uses like these that have given it a bad odor. To summarize: Authoress is not a heavily used word, and it is one that you can easily avoid if the risk of giving offense seems great. Still, writers have found it useful on occasion down through the past 500 years. Jane Austen used it of herself without qualm: • I may boast myself with all possible vanity to be the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress —letter, 1 Dec. 1815 (in Lounsbury 1908) It can be used condescendingly but is more often simply neutral. |
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