It didn't really offend me, I was just wondering how long such an archaic word will last.
In Australia we have Bachelor and Spinster Balls
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Why is this word still around?
- Thread starter Miss Chicken
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It didn't really offend me, I was just wondering how long such an archaic word will last.
In Australia we have Bachelor and Spinster Balls
Rest of the Wikipedia article here
I think it's silly to call a man a slut. However, a man CAN be a bitch -- if he acts like one. And he doesn't even have to be gay.
There is. Old Maid.
Actually, I believe if one is 25 and working in a Parisian fashion house, you could be a Catherinette instead. I doubt that still happens, but it is a more elegant term, I guess, and one a girl could co-opt at any age as a more pleasant term.
Since I have no plans of marrying anytime soon, or indeed ever, I've been looking forward to being able to use 'Catherinette' ever since I learned it. Only eight months to go!
As somebody who has no aspirations towards marriage or children, I actually rather like the word spinster. It doesn't conflate being unmarried with being celibate. It's a rare female-gendered pejoratives that doesn't boil down to one's sexual value, or use synecdoche to equate anatomy with moral worth.
Plus, fiction is rife with kick-ass spinsters.
People still use the word spinster in Australia? Odd that.
I always use Crazy Cat Lady
Yeah, I think that's the most common that I've heard.
Actually, I believe if one is 25 and working in a Parisian fashion house, you could be a Catherinette instead. I doubt that still happens, but it is a more elegant term, I guess, and one a girl could co-opt at any age as a more pleasant term.
Since I have no plans of marrying anytime soon, or indeed ever, I've been looking forward to being able to use 'Catherinette' ever since I learned it. Only eight months to go!
As a fellow - and probably equally indefinitely so, given my own feelings on the topic - unmarried person, I envy you girls for having such a pretty term to use. Just make sure to celebrate your Catherine-ness with a pretty hat rather than a wooden wheel...
I feel obliged to point out that inveterate bachelors tend to do quite well in fiction too, of course!
Talking of which, here's a fun cryptic clue I came across a while back: "Bachelor, the first man to become a fictional hero (6)"
In Italy the word is zitella (pr. zee-TEH-llah), which etymology is not immediately clear and I must confess I can't find any information about that on-line... weird.In Dutch we use the term "oude vrijster" for older unmarried women. Which doesnt translate into english very well, it basically means "old love making woman".
I've never heard anyone use the word spinster to refer to anyone unless being intentionally archaic. Perhaps it has to do with my social milieu, but no one really references marital status at all. It's "woman" or "man"; "dude" or "chick", with various descriptive epithets reserved for describing personality flaws...
I remember as a youth, we'd always hear about men, in history, who were referred to as "confirmed Bachelors". After some serious thought these days I've realized 99% were probably homosexuals. Think about it.
Anyway, I always thought women were Bachelorettes?
A bachelorette is any unattached female who has reached her majority. A spinster is a woman who chooses to remain a bachelorette, generally attributed to her preference for career over companionship, but, as mentioned before, this may be a cover/"excuse" for her homosexual lifestyle. And a crazy cat lady is a lesbian who never admitted it to herself, or was never successful at it.Anyway, I always thought women were Bachelorettes?
(Actually, I have this backward - a crazy cat lady may not be a failed lesbian, but MANY failed lesbians end up as crazy cat ladies.)Lest some of you think all of this ugliness with the namecalling is one-sided, allow me refer you to the term "breeder".
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Amaris
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I always thought "breeder" was a hilarious choice of insult. It's like "White Bread" and "Cracker". Those are sucky insults! I'm not going to get offended by those! In fact I'm going to more than likely laugh my ass off, which will just make the situation worse! 
Actually, "cracker" is not so funny if you are aware that it is short for whipcracker. And while I'm at it, you didn't mention "honky", but it means that someone frequent prostitutes - it comes from white men who used to drive into the black parts of cities to get hookers. They wouldn't want to get out of their cars in those parts of town, so they'd honk.I always thought "breeder" was a hilarious choice of insult. It's like "White Bread" and "Cracker". Those are sucky insults! I'm not going to get offended by those! In fact I'm going to more than likely laugh my ass off, which will just make the situation worse!
Breeder carries more in it than just "you have kids". It implies that you are one of the "go forth and multiply" "sheeple" who gets married and has kids not because you WANT to do either or really THINK you should, but because your peer group just does that, and you are too weak-minded to really think for yourself. Not so light-hearted now, is it? (BTW -I have two kids. I'm just explaining the term.)
MeanJoePhaser
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MeanJoePhaser
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Actually, "cracker" is not so funny if you are aware that it is short for whipcracker.I always thought "breeder" was a hilarious choice of insult. It's like "White Bread" and "Cracker". Those are sucky insults! I'm not going to get offended by those! In fact I'm going to more than likely laugh my ass off, which will just make the situation worse!
There's debate over the origin of "cracker", IIRC.
White people taste salty and crunch when baked.
A woman at my former workplace was in her mid-40s, had never had a boyfriend, was psychotic in the extreme, and was definitely a spinster. Then again she was also labelled a fag-hag, a woman whose only friends are gay men. I dislike the term but it is accurate.
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Amaris
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Actually, "cracker" is not so funny if you are aware that it is short for whipcracker. And while I'm at it, you didn't mention "honky", but it means that someone frequent prostitutes - it comes from white men who used to drive into the black parts of cities to get hookers. They wouldn't want to get out of their cars in those parts of town, so they'd honk.I always thought "breeder" was a hilarious choice of insult. It's like "White Bread" and "Cracker". Those are sucky insults! I'm not going to get offended by those! In fact I'm going to more than likely laugh my ass off, which will just make the situation worse!
Those don't bother me. "Whipcracker"? Never owned a slave. "Honky"? Meh, if I want a goddamned prostitute I'll drive downtown yelling out the window "I want a goddamned prostitute!". Insults require low to zero self worth, and while some areas of my life have such a deficit, there are parts that don't. One of those is what references my integrity, so insults like that don't bother me in the slightest.
I deal in words every day, and once you gain the mindset that an insult is just a word that bounces harmlessly off of you, and that it speaks more of the insecurity of the one who is insulting you rather than you being insulted, you kind of disregard insults. Plus, those insults really are laughably stupid.
Actually, yeah, it's still hilarious to me. It's like "air breather" and "water drinker". I mean in a "ha ha, you like to propagate the species" kind of way. Ooh. Burn.
People get mad at me because I don't get offended by those insults (not saying you, T), but they just don't bother me.
If they were giving you these insults to begin with, it might be true that they were mad at you before they found out you weren't offended by them 
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Amaris
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If they were giving you these insults to begin with, it might be true that they were mad at you before they found out you weren't offended by them
Poor wording on my part. I deserved it. I only meant that I don't get offended by the word usage by others (I don't use them). Believe me, I understand they are ugly words and have ugly intent, but I can't help laughing every time I hear someone use them. People get angry because I don't take the words seriously (people who aren't hurling them at me, that is
).
That's a folk etymology, as is the explanation that the voices of Caucasian people sound nasal or "honky" to blacks. Actually honky originally meant a manual laborer or factory worker, and is derived from "Hungarian." Its use by blacks as a disparaging term for whites is fairly recent, dating from the mid-1960s.
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