| 词组 | feminine forms, female-gender word forms, feminine designations |
| 释义 | feminine forms, female-gender word forms, feminine designations Long, learned, and speculative discussions of nouns whose terminations in English mark them as intended for women can be found under these and related headings in Fowler 1926, 1965, Reader's Digest 1983, Copperud 1970, 1980, and other sources. The largest group of these words, those ending in -ess, we have treated separately under that heading in this book. Writers who express opinions about feminine forms in general can be divided into three groups: those (mostly men) who believe them falling into disuse; those (some 19th-century women and Fowler 1926) who find them desirable; and those (chiefly women) who find them offensive for one reason or another. We do not yet know if 20th-century feminism will have much effect on the use of these words; our evidence does show, however, that many of those confidently pronounced by commentators years ago to have gone out of use as long ago as the 18th century are in fact still used. Fowler 1926 rather stands alone. He did not disparage feminine forms but found them useful, and actually hoped that more would come into use. He urged the adoption of such words as doctoress, teacheress, singer-ess, and danceress (he didn't care for cantatrice and danseuse). Fowler here was being generally consistent with his approval of the multiplication of distinctions in the language. He thought feminine terms packed two kinds of information in a single word, and he liked that. That characteristic probably accounts for the survival of many that are still in use. See -ess; see also person 2. |
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