At least two languages in the world sport a female and male version of the language. One of the languages is in northwestern South America, the other on a Polynesian island. The male and female versions of these languages share some of the function words such as prepositions, articles, and semantic organization, but they have different content words carried by nouns and verbs.
We don't really have that in the United States, but there are some analogs. Some words in English are spoken primarily by women. Rarely would a male say, "wonderful, sweet, marvelous, cute, (although men less than 50 are more prone to say this word than men over 50), and lavender." In this latter case, men seem to stick to mainstream colors and shy from colors such as magenta and peaches and cream. Women, on the other hand, steer clear of words like "slugged, smashed, pus, snuffed, and fecal" in favor of ameliorated terms.
Growing up male, then, or female partially determines which set of words are learned to be used and which are learned merely to understand. Cross-gender conversations happen more often in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world, more than likely, just because of the values held in our culture. As a result, frustration from cross-gender conversations abound. Men and women have distinct, negative impressions of the other gender's speech. A number of factors contribute to this idea, but having "male" and "female" words is certainly one contributor. Savvy women and men know this and make adjustments in their speech when carrying on a cross-gender conversation. At least they appear to "understand" rather than "condescend" to the way ideas are expressed. They are usually richly rewarded for doing so.
2 comments:
My 1991 Lincoln Town Car is named Lavender. Dad named it that. So there!
I see he made some of the adjustments necessary to show proper regard. I am sure there is a story behind naming the car Lavender. And, my favorite color is lavender, but I hardly ever, ever say the word.
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