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- How did the word beaver come to be associated with vagina?
Conclusion It is quite astonishing that the "young lady named Eva" limerick's takeoff on the street game of Beaver—a game that seems to have hastened the demise of the beard during the early decades of the twentieth century—has evidently had far more cultural staying power (as judged by popular slang) than the original game itself
- meaning - Can you still call a woman handsome? - English Language . . .
I have always tried to understand the use of the word handsome in letter to a lady friend, but refrained from doing so, because I didn't know whether the word would be a thoughtful gesture or insulting I have heard from many that the use of beautiful for a guy, when said by a woman, was also considered less than being referred to as handsome, but this one handsome beautiful woman said just
- Origin of tan someones hide as in Im gonna tan your hide
The reference is to the tanning process in leather making (as you've guessed) and The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Second Edition (by Christine Ammer) provides more details: This term uses hide in the sense of "skin" The allusion in the first expression is to a spanking that will change one's skin just as chemicals tan animal hide (convert it into leather) [Second half of 1600s
- Why is it ladies and gentlemen instead of gentlemen and ladies?
It probably has to do with the phonetic and metrical properties of "ladies and gentlemen" versus "gentlemen and ladies " Say them both out loud and see which one sounds better to you, intuitively The metrical pattern of "ladies and gentlemen" consists of (arguably) two dactyls A dactyl is a group of three syllables where the first is stressed and the second two are unstressed When these
- How does one write the name of a married female and spouse in a list of . . .
In a list of classmates, how is the name of a married female and spouse listed? Is the female given name or her husband's given name written first? How is the maiden name shown?
- What is a feminine version of guys?
From all the answers, it's clear that using a masculine term (eg "guys") is considered sexist (see Leopd's comment), and using a feminine term (eg "gals") is also considered sexist (see The Raven's answer) The only way to be safe, then, is to use a gender-neutral term, eg "people" Of course, if you use "guys" for males and "people" for females, you're just reintroducing a distinction: you
- meaning in context - English Language Usage Stack Exchange
In Pride and Prejudice, when an old woman (Catherine) asks a young lady (Elizabeth) whether she is engaged with her nephew or not, the young lady neither confirms nor rejects such relationship in a dissembling way Lady Catherine censures Elizabeth and criticizes the scandalous elopement of her sister Then she says this sentence: Heaven and earth!
- Is ‘hero’ applicable to females? - English Language Usage Stack . . .
It all seems very natural to me As bib says you get words like chairman chairwoman chair where the sex-independent version is coming into use but some people still prefer the specific versions or use chairman as sex-independent But in cases like actor and hero if you want a sex-independent word it makes more sense to use the shorter one
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