"Tristan" now feminine given name

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Feb 23 16:48:42 UTC 2006


>Brenda,
>
>   As you may remember from a few weeks back, trendsetters in this
>department were the parents of film actress "Tristen [sic] Skyler"
>(born in the ' 70s) and of sex columnist "Tristan Taormino"
>(probably another ' 70s baby - just guessing).
>
>   I'm sure that "Tristan and Isolde" mean nothing to 99.9% of
>today's Americans.

You mean that legendary tale of spicy, illicit girl-on-girl action?
Of course everyone knows about that!  (Actually, I saw a preview of a
new Hollywood movie of Tristan and Isolde, and strangely enough
Tristan was played by a guy.  Those crazy Hollywood folks!)

L

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list