Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!gateway From: travis@douglass.cs.columbia.EDU (Travis Lee Winfrey) Newsgroups: soc.feminism Subject: Re: Citations of the Word "Feminism" Message-ID: <6606@columbia.edu> Date: 9 Nov 89 04:10:59 GMT References: <47469@bbn.COM> <1329@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <28959@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <60622@aerospace.AERO.ORG> Sender: tittle@ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle) Reply-To: Travis Lee Winfrey Followup-To: soc.feminism Organization: Columbia University Lines: 39 Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu In article <28959@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> angie@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (angela allen) writes: >>Webster dates first usage of "feminism" in writing at 1970. Careful when you say "Webster." It's not a copyrightable name, so anyone can staple two sheets of paper together and call it a dictionary. >>Now, would that be defined as a change in the language? Absolutely. Just wait for usages like, ``In baseball, the first batter in the lineup is mainly expected to get on first base. Once on first, he or she may try to steal second, or wait for a teammate to get a base hit.'' In article <60622@aerospace.AERO.ORG> nadel@aerospace.aero.org (Miriam H. Nadel) writes: >I am almost positive that the word "feminism" was in use well before >1970. ... I'll have to look back to see if she ever used the word >"feminist" but I'm fairly sure it was in use by the late 19th >century. Yes, Miriam-Webster's Ninth Collegiate has 1895 as the first usage, with no details. If it was not in a usage by one of the authors you cite, then it was probably in connection with the suffrage movement. (I have no OED lying around the house, alas.) >A more significant change in the language would be the change in journalistic >standards for referring to women. No major U.S. newspaper rejects the >"Ms." usage anymore, but I consider the real sign of progress to be the >NY Times standard which no longer uses titles for women while referring to >men by last name only. (The first reference, of course, is by full name. >All subsequent references are by last name alone for both men and women.) Sure, or when politicians reflexively say "he or she", as I heard just yesterday's in George "Poppy" Bush's press conference and in David Dinkin's acceptance speech. t Arpa: travis@cs.columbia.edu Usenet: rutgers!columbia!travis