man+(noun) combining form

Carl Burnett Carl.N.E.Burnett.03 at ALUM.DARTMOUTH.ORG
Fri Sep 30 19:49:21 UTC 2005


In the days before gender-neutral nouns like "flight attendant," when
people wanted to refer to a woman in an occupation or role
traditionally done by men, they used suffixes like -ess and -ette.
Occasionally you also hear the prefix/combing form she-, as in "she-
devil" or "she-wolf."  Another alternative is to use a noun like
"girl," "woman," or "lady" in adjectival position, as in "Furthermore
Dawn Pathorpe, the lady showjumper, had a clam called Stafford, after
the late chancellor."

But what about when the gender associated with a noun is usually
assumed to be FEmale, but the speaker wants to emphasize that, in a
particular case, it is associated with a male?  I can only think of
one solution to this problem that has been around long enough to have
made its way into dictionaries: the word "manservant," which
presumably arose out of a need to distinguish your valet/butler from
all those female servants.

Recently, however, I've noticed a profusion of (mostly jocular)
occurrences of the "man-" combining form -- only one or two of them
in combination with traditionally female roles, but many more with
traditionally female body parts, clothes, or accessories.

For example:

female roles:
"man-whore" (213,000 hits on Google) including one-word, two-word,
and hyphenated variations)
"man-bitch" (32,300, although not all are relevant)
"man-slut" (15,100 Googits, In English anyway)

female body parts:
"man-boobs" (289,000)
"man-tits" (45,000)
"mangina" (man+vagina, 91,300, but not all relevant because this is
also a surname, believe it or not.  Popularized by the film "Deuce
Bigalo: Male Gigolo)

female clothing/accessories:
"man-thong" (51,400)
"man-purse" (48,300; popularized by a "Seinfeld" episode)
"man-panties" (46,000)
"man-bra" (32,100)
"manpon" (man+tampon, 1,810)
"man-skirt" (921)
"man-blouse" (752)
"man-dress" (a few)

Google Print turns up a few citations as well, especially for "man-
boobs."

Has anyone run across any others?  Anyone care to speculate whether
this is the same combining form as in "manservant"?  Are there limits
to its productivity?



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