I love this word so much that a friend made me a t-shirt embellished with it. I found it, appropriately enough, while playing dictionary with a 10-year-old girlfriend. According to the old dictionary we were using it means "an impudent or mischievous girl or woman." I like it because there are lots of words that describe men with these characteristics, but so few for women. When I asked around if anyone else had heard of this word, the two or three who had thought it meant slut!
So, I'd like to redeem and resusitate this forgotten gem, and encourage hoydens everywhere. Hoyden power!
BlanchePatch > "an impudent or mischievous girl or woman."
--------------------------------------------------------
Hurrah! A great word. Much better than "tom boy" which isn't appropriate for the older set. The T-shirt emblazoned "Runs with scissors" comes close but Hoyden is spot on.
Proudly hoydenish
wow
Interestin;g though the etymology says it is related to heathen, and does not specify gender. But I guess there was a need for a gender specific word . Tomboys and hoydens are appealing, and now don't have to combat stifling restrictive prim mothers as much as they used to. I have known many mothers who bitterly resented the freedoms their daughters had.
Dear Faldage: I think you will wait a long time before you see VIRAGO on a T shirt. Though we all know some females for whom it would be appropriate. Fortunately none of them visit our board.
>Fortunately, none of them visit our board.
oh? there are two senses for the word virago. (YCLIU)
here are some 'women' from the wwftd files:
beldam - an old woman, esp an ugly one: hag
cuckquean - a woman whose husband is unfaithful
doxy - a woman of loose morals: prostitute; mistress
fustilugs - a ponderous clumsy person, esp. a fat and slovenly woman
gammerstang - a tall, awkward person, usu. a woman
harridan - an ill-tempered scolding woman: shrew
hoyden - woman of saucy, boisterous or carefree behavior
inamorata - a woman with whom one is in love or has intimate relations
maenad - a woman participant in orgiastic Dionysian rites
malkin - [Brit] 1) an untidy woman: slattern; 2) cat; hare
parvenue - a woman who is a parvenu
rudas - [Scot] a hideous, vile and loathsome old woman
sylph - a slender graceful woman or girl
termagant - shrew; hard, overbearing woman
viraginity - masculine characteristics in a woman (leading to...)
virago - a woman of great stature, strength and courage; a loud overbearing woman
Xanthippe - [Socrate's scolding wife] any nagging, peevish or irritable woman
and, just for fun, here is a very useless(?) word from the collection:
tragolimia - in a man, an overwhelming and indiscriminate urge to have sex with any woman, regardless of her looks or age
Thanks, tsuwm. I have long wondered at the complementary term for "cuckold."
And as to "tragolimia" - in a man, an overwhelming and indiscriminate urge to have sex with any woman, regardless of her looks or age - I'm not gonna say it.
I remember a story about Sam Johnson's getting fish wife furious just by calling her a "gerund" or a similar grammatical term. So while your list is fun to read, I don't know anybody I could apply them to. But now I'm prepared, in any case. Thanks
virago - a woman of great stature, strength and courage; a loud overbearing woman
I suspect the latter definition is mostly a result of a wapman's (YCLIU) fear of women who refuse to be considered second class. There is a movement afoot among some feminists (feminist: one who holds the radical notion that women are human beings) to use the word hag in a positive sense.
I'm not gonna say itCome here and whisper it in my ear
Dear maverick: Before Sparteye gets close enough to whisper in your ear, do you solemnly swear that you are not a tragolimiac?
On my mother's gravy.
What a fabulous list! I forgot about doxy, it sounds so cute!
But I can't help noticing that the list is short on words for forceful positive attributes, those that are have transmogrified into negatives (virago, and maybe bedlam). Tomboy is a phrase that was used to describe me in my childhood, but I never felt like I was acting like a boy, I just felt I was acting like me.
I've seen attempts to recover the word "crone"; some women are having "croning" ceremonies to celebrate the onset of menopause. I applaud the effort, though I gotta admit I'd hesitate to describe myself that way. Unless I can be like Baba Yaga and live in a chicken-legged house.
>short on words for ... positive attributes
it seems to be a fact of the human condition that we end up with lots of words for 'negative' concepts. take the hundreds of words for the condition of being drunk for an example. or ask me about my 'ship of fools' sometime...
I can't help noticing that the list is short on words for forceful positive attributes, those that are have transmogrified into negativesIn a male-dominated society, that is surely to be expected. Similar bias can be seen in the way our dextral world describes the blessed few born sinistral.
Personally, I think it's just amino acid envy
blessed few born sinistral
i was, and for some kooky reason i suspect that a disproportionately high percentage of other AWADers are, as well.
a show of hands, perhaps??
I am right-handed, but almost every especially significant person in my life is left-handed, including my father, my husband, my older son, my younger son, my best male friend, and my best female friend, and several others within my near circle. I have often wondered why I have a right-brain personality but am right-handed.
a show of hands, perhaps??Not a good idea, Bridget, the poor dextrals might feel left out!
Which hand should the ambisinistrous hold up?
ambisinistrousI don't care, you get 1 squajillion bonus points for using a word that I thought I had coined!
The truly ambisinistrous have my admiration, all the more so now that I know I am not alone in using the word.
Not a good idea, Bridget, the poor dextrals might feel left out! *chuckle* you mean kinda like those unfortunates who didn't make the Feb-May birthday clique?
*chuckle* you mean kinda like those unfortunates who didn't make the Feb-May birthday clique?Hey, anybody can be born on a President's birthday, but I was born on an anniversary of the most famous assassination of the 20th Century, so there!!
you may have merely given it another sense, max. the ambidextrous of the world have previously defined it as "clumsy, maladroit (the opposite of ambidextrous): ambilaevous" - as usual, you've come up short.
as usual, you've come up short.
That's "vertically challenged" to you, pardner!
Zowie - I made it into the lefty clique and the birthday clique!
Seriously folks - how many lefties out there? I PM Max to propose a poll, but it just popped up orgasmically.
I'm a righty. But like Sparteye, most o' my best pals are lefties. Go figure.
Right handed, although ambidextrous in many tasks. (Which I regard as unremarkable)
Aries. (1 in 12 chance there)
Red hair. (Now we're talking some serious recessive alleles!)
I had three brothers, two of us right handed, two left handed.
To this day when I have to seat people around a table I ask if anyone's left handed and place them appropriately.
wow
February 10 1929 Year of the Earth Snake.
When I have to seat people around a table, I ask if anyone's left handed and place them appropriatey.
Very considerate of you, wow. When I was in high school, my Bio teacher seated me (a right-hander) on the left side of a lab table. My lab partner, of course, ended up being left-handed! We bumped elbows all semester. Ow.
Just spotted this thread.
Virago was claimed by the publishing world in the early seventies. Styled as 'the first mass-market publisher for 52% of the population – women. An exciting new imprint for both sexes in a changing world'. They have continued to publish fascinating works, especially those re-discovered from the days when women writers were not so highly regarded (Unimaginable now, sic)!
See their website for their history:
http://www.virago.co.uk"One of the most vigorous, stylish and successful British publishing imprints, Virago is the outstanding international publisher of women's literature. It is the largest women's imprint in the world and has made commercial success of publishing books of quality and originality."
Note for Bill - You can even buy the t-shirt!
Virago was claimed by the publishing world in the early seventies.
I just checked out the Virago site and their splash page features a book by one of my favorite science writers, Natalie Angier. Lots of other cool books, too. Thanks for the link!
I am right handed, but have some double dexterity-- which falls short of being ambidextrous-- so can use a screw driver in either hand, but i write with my right-- I eat european style (left handed), and i knit and sew left handed. there are other things i do left handed, but i can't think of them-- i don't really think about it-- i just pick up and do, and some time i do it with a right hand and some times with a left-- but each hand has, for the most part 'assigned' jobs. there are very few things i can do equally well with either hand.
Basically ambi, but write with left
since screamed at by hideous baggage of a primary school teacher! Still use hands for most tasks without particular favour, though for some reason I would prefer to pick up a saw in my left and a hammer in my right.
Having jumped on the lefty bandwagon early in this poll, I guess I have to amend things a bit. I seem to work a bit like of Troy and Maverick - occasionally I don't know which hand I prefer in a particular task until I pick up the appropriate implement. But since we tend to describe ourselves by which hand we write with, I call myself a lefty. For writing and many finer motor skills, I use my left, but I mouse with my write, and can write on a chalkboard/whiteboard with either hand, and sometimes switch back and forth. For most sports and other large-muscle activities I use my right, but I can bat either way (but hate baseball) and can fence equally well (in fact, equally badly) with either hand. "I have something to tell you. I'm not left-handed either."
Hyla
at Hyla, because that film is definitely included among my long list of favourites...
"I have something to tell you. I'm not left-handed either."
As you wish.
There was a man whose right arm was two inches longer than his left arm. He used the right arm to reach everthing on the table he wanted.
He used the left arm to miss the dinner check by two inches.
how odd, while googling the word "cognomen" i unwittingly discovered a word which applies to this thread: Scaevola
there's an interesting story behind it at
http://www.arduini.net/names/names14a.htm
And the cognomen "Scaevola" meant literally "shitwing". In the days before Charmin was available, the left hand was used instead, and was socially unacceptable.
Still true among the more traditionally minded here. The paper provided in more upmarket conveniences is often used as paper towels after washing the hands.
Bingley
Well, of 9 people who posted their handedness, we got some surprising results. This just reflects which hand people said they write with, as that tends to be how we identify our handedness.
We ended up with four lefties (Max Q, Hyla, Bridget96, maverick), one ambi (wwh), and four righties (Sparteye, BlanchePatch, FiberBabe, of troy).
Not the expected distribution, by any means.
Anyone else care to post (or PM me, to keep the suspense up) and I'll let y'all know where we end up?
>to keep... suspense up
I keep suspense up withs a belt, which I loops to the left, sos i musts be right-handed? hth.
We ended up with four lefties (Max Q,Hyla, Bridget96, maverick)I fear that I don't truly belong on that list. I am left-handed, but I have strong suspicions that it is only by force of circumstance. I think like a "left-brainer", and am useless at all the arty-farty creative stuff that left-handers are supposed to be good at. All the indications are that my being left-handed was a last-second survival chioce made to minimise the impact of CP. I am, if you will, a dextral in sinistral clothing. How sinister is that?
We ended up with four lefties (Max Q,Hyla, Bridget96, maverick)
Add me! Add me! [raising left hand]
Max - your description of your being a left-brained lefty struck a chord, as that's just how I am. I have zero artistic ability, tend to think along the typical left-brain lines (as I've come to understand them), etc. However, in conducting the survey, I've had to draw lines somewhere, so have focused exclusively on which hand people use to write. So, I think we both pass as lefties and form part of what is so far a very unusual distribution.
Now - what is "CP," around of which you were trying to steer the impact?
what is "CP,"Sorry.
Cerebral Palsy, involving (hence the whole "hemi, demi, semi" thread) "R. hemiparesis due to birth hypoxia." As a child, one of the favourite taunts kids would throw at each other was, "up your nose with a rubber hose", and it used to give me great glee to be able to say, "been there, done that."
I am definitely a righty. The ONLY thing I always attempt to do with my left hand is open the tops on glass jars. I don't know why that is, but it makes me a lousy jar-opener.
And by the way, does anyone have any idea whether for some reason left-handedness is more prevalent in men than in women? I only know one woman who is left-handed, whereas I know at least 5 men (off the top of my head) who are...
I think that left-handedness, like many rescessive traits, predominates in males. Something under twenty percent of the population is left-handed, although I believe that a disproportionate number of sinisters are in technical fields.
Right-handed with zero artistic ability.
Bingley
< which hand people use to write>
Hi Hyla from right-handed paulb.
I wonder how long the "writing" hand will determine whether a person is right- or left-handed? I would surmise that more "writing" is done on a keyboard these days than with pen and paper.
Yes, but which hand do you use to throttle the mouse? I use R, my left-handed daughter uses L...
Paulb wonders
how long the "writing" hand will determine whether a person is right- or left-handed?The "mousing" hand, perhaps?
Would a kind soul elucidate the right/left brain talents and the connection to right/left handedness.
Either here or by Private Message.
I read about it Ages Ago and my poor aged brain refuses to dredge up the particulars. Or, perhaps a url ?
Many thanks
wow
The right-brain, left-brain theory is old enough to be seriously challenged. Sorry I can't give reference. I was always sceptical of the wild interpretations made of it.
What is known is that the right side of your brain controls the functions parts of the left side of your body, and the left side of your brain, controls the rights side of your body-- giving rise to the idea that lefties are the only people who are using (or in) their right mind!
"In general, the left hemisphere is more important for language and certain motor skills. On the average, the right side of the brain does better with certain kinds of spatial functions such as mentally walking through a maze, understanding and working with maps, visualizing and remembering faces, and other performances that don't depend on verbal descriptions."
--The Brain, Richard Restak, MD
GO SPARTANS!
For a bit of harmless fun, any who haven't seen it before are encouraged to download brain.exe from AWADabilia at idrive. It is a fun quiz that attempts to categorise responses to certain questions as right or left brain, visual or auditory. Spontaneous answers have a reasonable chance of delivering a not too wildly inaccurate assessment. The first time I tried it, I was staggered by the validity of its conclusions, but have not managed the same accuracy since, so it was probably beginner's luck. It is, of course, totally unscientific, but still a lot of fun, with the potential to be thought-provoking. If enough people try it, we may even be able to post results, either the eerily accurate, or the laughably wrong.
username: maxquordlepleen
Password: Crescent
Oh, Max, how cool! It said something that surprised me:
that I "have a strong preference for auditory processing".
I would have said I am a visually-oriented person. My
"learning style is very much language-based and logical".
My left brain is slightly dominant, with 54.5%. Yep--pretty much right down the middle--again.
Note: it is important, in these types of tests, to mark what your first, instinctive answer is--if you think about it too much, you can skew the results.
I do not know whether or nay this matter under discussion has been treated evenhandedly, but when once it is resolved perhaps we could celebrate. There is this watering hole down the way a bit called the Bar Sinister where SOME of us could gather. Several Queries come to mind: Does this establishment cater to "lefties" or to threatening evildoers or both. Or, (dare I say) "on the other hand" does it "bar" Lefties. And then of course there is the question more intime', concerning whether one was born on the "right" side of that Fate-determining Blanket or (alas!)on the "other" side. I cannot answer these Qs because, though I am curious(blue) I have never patronised that place, preferring instead its across-the-street neighbor the "Bar None" which, open-mindedly, democratically offers a welcome hand (dexter or sinister) to all, including nuns. When the rant ends and we celebrate, once again, as friends, I shall be pleased to go to a deli to get the Right Stuff for the party. Meantime, for the record, (wasn't someone keeping score?) Scribbler is a "rightie" "Dieu et mon Droit" he notes adroitly, but confesses that he is really ambi-sensuous or whatchacallit.
Note: it is important, in these types of tests, to mark what your first, instinctive answer is--if you think about it too much, you can skew the results.Absolutely. Since so few have yet taken up this particular gauntlet, I have made the game easier to find. Clicking on this link,
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/maxq/brain.exe will take one straight to a download page.
How curious! The interpretive results of my test seemed to be almost entirely accurate. I'm 59% right-brained, which doesn't surprise me, tho' I'm right-handed, I'm pretty creative. 50/50 Visual and Auditory.
Whenever I see a quiz that "reveals your personality," I'm always skeptical about the language of the result. For example, there's a "psychic" on a cable channel right now, I forget his name, but he says he can contact the dead and lots of people show up in his tv audience to see if he can find out about loved ones. Recently I read an analysis of his technique, and while all the tricks were fresh in my mind, I tried it out on my partner: "There's an important aniversary -- I see the number 9 -- is 9 important to you for any reason? And the letter J" Meanwhile, the supplicant is wracking their brain to make his suggestions fit, since they've already invested the time, at least, in believing in this guy.
Not that this right-left test is in the same league. But it seems amazing that so much can be projected from answering so few questions.... I'll try it out on some unsuspecting guinnea p--- I mean friends.
For example, there's a "psychic" on a cable channel right now, I forget his name, but he says he can contact the dead and lots of people show up in his tv audience to see if he can find out about loved ones.Try me. When I was teaching I often found I could contact the dead, particularly on a Monday morning after a party weekend in Dunedin's dubious but extremely lively student quarter.
Dunno about them being loved ones, however. Disowned was the most common impression I got.
M. Scribbler, I don't want you to be left all alone. I can see that you are even-handed in your interactions, whether people are from the dexter or sinister side. I, too, am
right-handed, so will you kindly allow me, even though I am
not a nun, to take your left elbow? If you will escort me into the Bar None, I will be happy to procure your favorite
beverage for you from the barkeep. Perhaps after some glad-handing 'round the place, we might persuade other patrons that it would be the right thing to do to cross the street and picket the Bar Sinister--unless all its patrons have left. Your ambi-sensuous remark is most intriguing, sir. But I have no wish to be insensuous, so I shall make no inquiries. I hope to continue being able to be in your courtly presence, and not be barred from it.
did anyone get severely skewed results? i got 72% left side, plus 64% visual, which the program said meant i'm weird. well, they actually used the term 'unusual', but we all know what that means.
Dear Max,
Thank you so much for the
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/maxq/brain.exewithout it I'd never have gotten through the maze.
Took the "test" once. Left-45.5 Right-54.5 Visual 31.3 and Auditory 68+ It said I'm "well balanced" -- my sons and friends will zing me about that! -- and I am predominantly an auditory learner ... verrrrry interesssting ... as I am deaf in one ear!
However, does this mean I would be twice as smart if I heard everything ... at full volume?
wow
72.8% left dominant "with a balanced preference for auditory and visual inputs".
"Organised"? Have you seen my desk? "You persevere on a theme." i.e., you don't know when to let something drop.
"You have at hand at least two alternatives which dimensionalise your organisation and thoroughness." If my organisation is dimensionalised, will I lose my job?
Bingley
72.8% left dominant "with a balanced preference for auditory and visual inputs".
"Organised"? Have you seen my desk? "You persevere on a theme." i.e., you don't know when to let something drop.
"You have at hand at least two alternatives which dimensionalise your organisation and thoroughness." If my organisation is dimensionalised, will I lose my job?
WHAT?! Now you tell me that I ought not have relied on it for making life-altering decisions? Sheesh!
making life-altering decisionsThanks for that link, Max – great fun!
Left brain: 62.5% Right brain: 37.5%
Auditory: 60% Visual: 40%
“enviable organisation, structure and efficiency” – hah! Bingley I definitely
can’t see any part of my desk as I type
But that’s all serene code for “control freak”, so I ain’t stoppin’ those tablets yet…