Wednesday 6 November 2013

The Artist Unleashed: FEISTY? A REFLECTION ON ADJECTIVES AND GENDER—AND HOW WE RESPOND, by Sarah Dale

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7 comments:

  1. I understand what both you and Phiippa Perry are saying. Since English is a nuanced language, I think the discussion's a good-faith, healthy one. Do I think "feisty" has negative overtones? Yes, of course! I would be insulted if someone described me as such.

    My husband's in industry. HR literature stresses certain instances: an insecure woman is a man learning the ropes; a feisty woman is a determined man; a chatty woman is a gregarious man; a nosey woman is an interested man . . . and so on.

    Statistics released today say a woman in Texas, for example, earns 79 cents to a man's dollar. This inequity won't disappear until a man and a woman are equally feisty or affable. I'm all for reaching out -- to crack the glass ceiling!

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  2. Huh, I'd actually never given much thought to the connotation of "feisty" until reading this post. Now, I can't stop thinking about it and realize that every time I've been called feisty or have dubbed someone feisty, there have been - perhaps unintentionally - levels of negativity :-/

    And yet, there is a part of me that isn't offended. Because feisty, to me, suggests that I'm riled up about something. Uncomfortable or determined. That's not such a bad thing.

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  3. I wouldn't think feisty is a negative word. I guess maybe there are words that apply more to one gender. I hear cocky and I think of a dude. Never been offended by one though.

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  4. Great comments. It's an interesting area I think, and I especially like Kitty's examples from the HR literature. I've found I'm thinking about it quite a lot now (but trying not to be tongue tied by it...!)

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  5. Interesting. When I think of the word "feisty," I think about toddlers, for some reason. I think people are too quick sometimes to get offended on social media. Maybe because it's so impersonal.

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  6. On a technical note, it seems that feisty comes from feist...

    feist (fst) also fice (fs)
    n. Chiefly Southern U.S.
    A small mongrel dog.
    [Variant of obsolete fist, short for fisting dog, from Middle English fisting, a blowing, breaking wind, from Old English fsting; see pezd- in Indo-European roots.]
    Regional Note: Feist, also fice, is one of several regional terms for a small mixed-breed dog. Used throughout the Midland and Southern states, feist connotes a snappy, nervous, belligerent little doghence the derived adjective feisty, meaning "touchy, quarrelsome, or spirited," applicable to animals and to people. Although feist remains a regional word, feisty has now entered standard usage throughout the United States.

    Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

    So although there are connections with fist, maybe the pet analogy is not so far away...

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Alison - yes, I saw that description too. I think it is an example of a word that has travelled some distance from its roots - at least in some contexts!

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