[Lexicog] Derogatory (?) endings

[Kenneth C. Hill]

I think present-day standards would require us to say "she is a poet" or
"the poet was a woman". A "lady poet", to be acceptable these days, would
be the female equivalent of a "gentleman poet". The feminine form of a
noun strongly suggests that the activity in question is different from the
plain form, unless one is making conscious reference to a period in
history when people glorified women in unexpected roles such as the use in
the 1930s of the now old-fashioned term "aviatrix".

--Ken

--- Fritz Goerling <Fritz_Goerling at sil.org> wrote:

> Patrick,
> 
> Why does "poetess" or "scuptress" sound derogatory to your or to a
> contemporary English speaker's
> ears? I asked other British and American English speakers who did not
> think
> so. What is the
> connotation? Does "lady poet" sound better?
> You know German enough to confirm that it is impossible to refer to a
> female
> poet/lady poet/poetess
> by the term Dichter (that is reserved for male poets). She is a
> Dichterin
> with -in as the feminine suffix.
> And how about other word formations with - ess like "empress"? I cannot
> see
> that this is
> demeaning.
> 
> Fritz Goerling
>   Patrick Hanks wrote:
> 
>   Your point about "mademoiselle" reminds me of Italian "professoressa",
>   which sounds derogatory to my English ears (thinking of English
> "poetess",
>   "sculptress", etc.), a connotation which apparently does not exist for
>   Italian native speakers.
> 
> 


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