#71077
05/24/2002 5:56 AM
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Joined: Apr 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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I came across this sentence in a work of fiction yesterday: "The brunette shakes his head." It did eventually become clear as I read further that the writer was indeed using brunette to refer to a man. To me, a brunette is by definition a brown-haired woman. I thought we had discussed this before but I can't find the thread. So, what do you all think? Does a brunette have to be female? xrefer ( http://www.xrefer.com/entry.jsp?xrefid=591752&secid=.-), by the way, says that US'ns also use brunet as a sex-neutralish term. Bingley
Bingley
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#71078
05/24/2002 10:56 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
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Very odd, Bingley - I certainly associate '-ette' with a feminine version of something traditionally male - drum-majorette, f'rinstance, or suffragette. Enough so that, without any context, I was wondering if the example you gave meant the "the brown-haired woman grabbed the fellow by the ears and rapidly oscillated his cranium."
But '-ette' is also used for inanimate objects to denote petiteness - as in "Vanette," used by a vehicle manufacturer for a small van marketed in the UK (Suzuki, I think?) and what the USn's call a Motor Home, we call a "Caravanette."
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#71079
05/24/2002 11:32 AM
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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The aggressive brunette shaking the man's head makes sense--but it's a comical image. However, perhaps the man in question was effeminate and that's why the girlish "brunette" was used here. Deep hidden meanings and all that jazz. Jo: I'm just fooling around here!
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#71080
05/24/2002 12:25 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
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My dictionary says "brunnette" is French feminine of "brunet", which does not have bender specified. So WW's suggesting the male subject was effeminate seems acceptable. But "browned off" seems strong language.From Quinion:
browned off, which may refer to the accumulation of brown
rust on worn-out metal, but is more likely to be linked with other words in
brown that relate to sodomy
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#71081
05/24/2002 1:05 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 819 |
and what the USn's call a Motor Home, we call a "Caravanette."
It's odd that we in the USA now use the term, "motor home" for those bloated rolling road blocks, since the person who introduced us to such atrocities, Wally Byam, used "caravan" for his trailers. Thus, one would have expected "motor caravan" for the self-propelled versions.
As for the "ette" suffix, we have the car named "Corvette" that General Motors markets with a macho image. Go figure. Since the word originally refers to a reduced-scale warship, and ships are normally referred to in the feminine, the "ette" suffix makes sense in its original connotation. GM used to market a small car under the name, "Chevette," but dropped it, perhaps because it sounded too much like, "Shove it!"
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#71082
05/24/2002 1:30 PM
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Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 4,189
Carpal Tunnel
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by the way, says that US'ns also use brunet as a sex-neutralish term.
Actually ®, Bingley, I've never seen this usage (brunet). And, to me, brunette, always connotes a woman. Also, having been in the theatre dealing with costumes and props, I've always seen wigs described on manufacturer's labels and storage boxes as brunette (or brown, auburn, etc.), never brunet.
I also find it interesting that we endeavor to draw a distinction between the masculine and feminine for brown/brunette, but that blonde and redhead are gender neutral.
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#71083
05/24/2002 1:44 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
blondeNuh-uh!  Blond is masculine and blonde is feminine, even in English (or at least most of the places I've seen it).
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#71084
05/24/2002 1:47 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
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pasted from AHD:
USAGE NOTE: It is usual in English to treat blond as if it required gender marking, as in French, spelling it blonde when referring to women and blond elsewhere. But this practice is in fact a relatively recent innovation, and some have suggested that it has sexist implications and that the form blond should be used for both sexes. There is certainly a measure of justice to the claim that the two forms are not used symmetrically. Since English does not normally mark adjectives according to the gender of the nouns they modify, it is natural to interpret the final -e as expressing some additional meaning, perhaps because it implies that hair color provides a primary category of classification for women but not men. This association of hair color and a particular perception of feminine identity is suggested in phrases such as dumb blonde and Is it true blondes have more fun? or in Susan Brownmiller's depiction of Hollywood's “pantheon of celebrated blondes who have fed the fantasies of men and fueled the aspirations of women.” The corresponding masculine form blond, by contrast, is not ordinarily used to refer to men in contexts in which hair color is not specifically at issue; there is something arch in a reference to Leslie Howard, Robert Redford, and other celebrated blonds. See Usage Note at brunette.
(well, this begs the question doesn't it?! :P)
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#71085
05/24/2002 1:50 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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again, from AHD:
USAGE NOTE: Brunette was for a long time used to denote a woman having a dark complexion; now it is used chiefly in reference to hair color. The general practice is to use the form brunette to refer only to women, with brunet as a less frequently used variant that can be applied as well to men and mixed groups. The distinction, like the one between blonde and blond, has been regarded as carrying sexist implications. In this case, however, it is difficult to see how the problem can be easily resolved. It is unlikely that brunette could be pressed into service as a neutral term, since the suffix -ette is too closely associated with marked feminine gender. Brunet is theoretically available for both sexes but is rarely applied to men, whose corresponding coloration is typically described simply as “brown.” It would, of course, be possible to use brown for the hair color of both sexes, if only that word could be redeemed from the associations of drabness that led to the adoption of the substitute brunette in the first place. See Usage Note at blond.
()
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#71086
05/24/2002 1:56 PM
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Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 322
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 322 |
I tend to use blonde only as a noun, referring to a woman. But both men and women can have blond hair (as an adjective, I don't add the e).
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#71087
05/24/2002 1:57 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
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Well, tswum, that was non-committal. (And they're right, it's somewhat sexist, but that wasn't my point at all!) 
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#71088
05/24/2002 5:01 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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Although it is popular to *say that blonde refers to women and blond to men I think that an examination of usage will show, at best, only a slight tendency towards this convention. In the case of blond hair, it should be noted that the gender of the adjective would be expected to match the gender of the noun hair and not the sex of the person sporting the hair. Haar, the German cognate to the English hair, is neuter and by and large, before the conflation of gender with sex, when we concerned ourselves with such niceties, the gender of English nouns matched the gender of the cognate German noun. I'll report back later when I get my hands on my AS wordhoard.
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#71089
05/24/2002 5:10 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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I'll report back later when I get my hands on my AS wordhoard.
On your what!?
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#71090
05/24/2002 5:14 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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On my what!?
Mon dictionnaire de la langue anglo-saxonne.
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#71091
05/24/2002 5:17 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
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#71092
05/24/2002 10:49 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Really! since the gutter police is in limbo you guys are really taking advantage, aren't you.
Shape up.
It's too easy,
Hold fire until new Superintendent has emerged.
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#71093
05/25/2002 4:10 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Singularly enough®, I quite recently saw 'brunet' used in the sense of a man with dark hair (I forget where I saw it, unfortunately). I think it's a perfectly sensible usage, like 'blond'. I have no problem with gender-specific words; indeed, I would welcome more, since they add precision to language. Of course, borrowing from French makes perfect sense, since French nouns and adjectives have discernible gender, which English generally does not.
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#71094
05/25/2002 4:39 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439
Carpal Tunnel
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I have no problem with gender-specific words; indeed, I would welcome more, since they add precision to language.
Oh, Heaven preserve us!
As if English isn't already difficult enough.
And I remember struggling with my French memory ticklers : "the article agrees with the possesor not the possessed" -- to decide if it's la or le!
Heaven Forfend we'd go thru that with English.
So for now, for me, it is :
Man with brown hair
Brunette woman
Blonde man or woman
Redhaired man or woman
or
man or woman with red hair, strawberry blonde, chestnut etc.
At least until I am dead. Please?
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#71095
05/25/2002 4:56 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
Carpal Tunnel
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and she with the silver hair leaves out silver!
there are lots of words for hair color..
flaxen
tow
platinum
blonde
ash
honey
golden
dirty (blonde)
strawberry blonde
red
auburn
copper
flame
foxxy (red)
(blue)!
chestnut
warm (brown)
salt and pepper
black
ebony
silver
slate
but i agree with WOW, we don't need more words that are gender (in the sexual sense) limited. blond/blonde is one too many!
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#71096
05/25/2002 6:01 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
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Well, I checked my AS wordhoard and it sez hćr is neuter, just like it is in German. course this is a little irrelevant cuz I think we stopped worrying about such thangs (mostly) by the time blond made it in to the lexicon. As an aside, I did a little digging and found a site for Blond from Birth that has some rants and raves about the prejudice against blonds and how it is perpetuated by brunettes trying to pass themselves off as blonds. There are a bunch of essays that seem to be fairly noncommital about the blond/blonde controversey, although one does seem to use blond as an adjective and blonde as a noun (or is it the other way round?). You could look it up. Google "blond" and don't pay it no never mind when it asks if you wanted to google "blonde". Go to the first English language site and root around (unless you're Aussie, in which case you'd have better luck doing something else even if rooting around was more fun).
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#71097
05/25/2002 7:37 PM
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 0
stranger
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stranger
Joined: May 2002
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#71098
05/25/2002 11:26 PM
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688 |
OK.....What color do you call my hair? It used to be blonde, it's not really brown now. Is it dishwater blonde or mousey brown? Can we come up with something just a little more appetizing to describe it? And we just won't mention the silver around my face...OK? 
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#71099
05/25/2002 11:39 PM
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Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,400
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the thing about blond hair is, there are several different blonds -- but basicly 2 types, white blonds/yellow blonds.
i suspect you were a white blonde.. this is commonly called an ash (vs. golden) ash blond often fade to a darker ash.. it not really a brown.. but a very neutral color.. (my own hair has faded to grey... not a nice silver grey, but an ash grey.. sort of color of a grey squirrel.. ) Ash blondes when very light are almost white, shading to beige. (platimum, or tow, (the color of raw flax or flaxen.) golden blondes are sunny, or honey, or amber.. definately a yellow tone
golden blonds often do not fade, or if they do, they fade to a light brown. (clearly a brown color) the consolations is golden blonde are more likely to get brassy -- a hard yellow shade (just from oxidation of the hair over time, but it worse if you color it.) but ash blondes don't!
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#71100
05/25/2002 11:45 PM
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Joined: Dec 2001
Posts: 688
addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2001
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First time I have ever been happy to be ashy! 
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#71101
05/26/2002 11:40 AM
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
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Especially, Angel, if you take it as referring (as I think you should) to the spring-time colour of the leaves of the Ash tree, rather than as the product of the incineration of the same plant!
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