blogger and blogess

[Alice Faber]

This whole item seems quite suspect to me. I read a fair number of blogs
written and maintained by women. These range from highly political blogs
with a high degree of concern for feminist issues to apolitical knitting
and craft blogs. I can't imagine any of the women maintaining these
blogs referring to herself as anything but a blogger, even with ironic
scare quotes.

Wilson Gray wrote:
> Do they really spell it as "blogess" as opposed to "bloggess"?
>
> -Wilson
>
> On 11/2/06, William Salmon <william.salmon at yale.edu> wrote:
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       William Salmon <william.salmon at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject:      blogger and blogess
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>> > At 4:06 PM -0500 11/2/06, hpst at earthlink.net wrote:
>> >> What do you call an actress these days, a woman actor or simply an
>> actor?
>> >>
>> >> As far as I can tell the use of a word which denotes the sex of a
>> person is
>> >> going out of style and therefore the use of gender specific words
>> denoting
>> >> the sex of the person is disappearing..
>>
>> However, it seems pretty common for a female blog writer to be referred
>> to as a "blogess".  This feminine form is nowhere near as common as
>> "blogger", but many female blog writers do make the distinction.
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange
> complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is knows how deep
> a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our
> race. He brought death into the world.
>
> --Sam Clemens
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


--
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Alice Faber
faber at haskins.yale.edu
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