pejorative terms for men and women

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/1/07 2:51:53 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> "He's a scumbag":  11800
> "She's a scumbag":   2300
> 
> "He's an asshole":  67900
> "She's an asshole": 16700
> 
> Gender is a statistically significant predictor of assholism and
> scumbaggery, but not decisive.  (Notice that there are more [alleged]
> female assholes than there are [alleged] scumbags of either sex.)
> 
> LH
> 

Note also 

He's a cunt 953
She's a cunt 11,300

but

He's a palooka 4
She's a palooka 0

He's a lecher 348
She's a lecher 1

He's a dumb jock 5
She's a dumb jock 0

The numbers are small, but they suggest to me that there are potentially 
pejorative terms that play upon intrinsically male stereotypes, just as there are 
female ones.


**************************************
 Get a sneak peek of the 
all-new AOL at http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour

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