It’s been bugging me enough that I’m going to post no matter how badly you ridicule me and how little support I’m going to get from the other women on the site.
Last time I checked, “female” refers to a person’s reproductive organs, and therefore in my mind, (yes, this is a big leap), primarily someone is being categorized for their sexual capabilities. And female can be any female animal at all.
Webster’s defines “Woman” as an “Adult female human.” Yes, female is part of it, but woman also means “Adult” and “Human.” It respects our maturity and humanity.
I have no problem with “gals” or “ladies,” those simply strike me as informal versions of “women.” It’s really just “females” that strikes a sour chord.
Just my two cents everyone. Think on it before you dismiss it.
Oh fer the love of Pete…you ain’t got nothin’ better to do than sit around an ruminate on which words make your little PC meter wiggle and which ones don’t? Why don’tcha just go fer a run or sumthin’? Do sumthin’ useful…like visualize whirled peas. I’ll bet yer one of them, whadda ya call 'em, mental masturbaters, ain’tcha?
Interesting. I usually say “females” when I am discussing something that I do not wish for the things associated with “woman” to be applied (in order to avoid any branching debates that may follow).
Equally interesting … I had never even thought of the possbility of being offended when I am referred to as “male”.
I would think that when someone says “female”, that the “human” part is implied.
From this moment on I shall attempt to refer to women as simply “XX”, as to not offend anyone.
English is not my native language, however, I will try to contribute.
Woman is a noun and female is a word that refers to a noun. Unfortunately, I don’t know the English word for that. Just like in car and blue car. Women is a word in the category of car - a noun - and female is a word in the category of blue - for which I don’t know the English expression.
Can somebody help me out, and find the right English word? In Dutch it’s ‘zelfstandig naamwoord’ and ‘bijvoegelijk naamwoord’.
The word you’re looking for is ‘adjective’. But note that an adjective can sometimes be used as a substantive (ie, without a noun). Eg, when selecting a puppy, ‘Would you prefer the male or the female? The one, or the other?’ Or consider Eric the Red, Alexander the Great, etc.
P.S. to others: ‘definitely’ is definitely not spelled definately!
I agree with the original poster, the word female is often misused on this forum. A quote out of another thread: “Every single female who I train with …”. That should be “every single woman who I train with…” .
The posters who mentioned adjectives and nouns had it right.
Hey man, every time you open a thread marked “OT” you risk a waste of bandwidth. You knew the risks going in.
And for the record, my request is not even close to as “PC” as it could be. I could say I’d like to be called a “womyn” because the word “women” has the word “men” in it. I did not ask that.
Yep, I knew most of you would completely not care about this and some would attack. I made my point, I didn’t ask you to agree, I only asked you to think about it. And you also had the choice not to read the post at all. So bfh if thirty seconds of your time (or maybe now one minute) was wasted thinking about the difference between the words. For those of you who did post in support, thanks!
You’ll note the time at which I posted this (or maybe you won’t). I already did my workout, nice try. By the way, don’t knock mental masturbation until you’ve tried it.
