(a) blond(e)

[Laurence Horn]

>         There seem to be people who think that blonde is the noun and
>blond is the adjective.  Look at these Google hits:
>
>         21,700  "she has blonde hair"
>         10,100  "she has blond hair"
>
>         So the adjectival form is only mildly sex-linked for women.  Now
>look at the noun forms:
>
>         14,500  "she's a blonde"
>            333  "she's a blond"
>
>         For some reason, a woman can have "blond hair" but is unlikely
>to be referred to as a "blond."
>

That's not too surprising; works that way in the original French, after all:

Elle est une blonde
Il est un blond
Il/Elle a les cheveux blonds.  (masc. pl.)

LH

>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
>Of Laurence Horn
>Sent: Monday, November 06, 2006 11:13 AM
>To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>Subject: Re: (a) blond(e)
>
>At 7:44 AM -0800 11/6/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote [re _blond_/_blonde_]:
>>That's the distinction I was taught in Junior High.
>>
>>    Since then it has been condemned as sexist to use the "e" form for
>>women, though it could be interpreted as ignorant and linguistically
>>insensitive not to. Like saying "NeanderTHal."
>
>I think the more frequent complaint is the standard use of the nominal
>"a blonde", given the role of nouns as categorizers/pigeon-holers (cf.
>Bolinger, Wierzbicka, and our discussion of this tendency buried in the
>yellowing archives), the claim that categorizing individuals in terms of
>appearance is demeaning, and the fact that we're much more likely to do
>this with women than men ("she's a blonde": 14,400 google hits/"he's a
>blond(e)": 485).  Nor is this a fact about blond(e)s per se, as
>sometimes argued:  cf. "she's a brunette" vs. "he's a brunet(te)".
>
>LH
>
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