vivacious

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Well, like, uhm, why wouldn't  vivacity (vivaciousness?) In the personality of a man  look" exactly like vivacity in the personality of a woman? It is not a sex-related physical characteristic (cf. "busty").
------Original Message------
From: Wilson Gray
Sender: ADS-L
To: ADS-L
ReplyTo: ADS-L
Subject: Re: [ADS-L] vivacious
Sent: Jul 9, 2009 10:14 PM

Me, too. I'm not sure sure what vivacity in the personality of a man
would look like.

-Wilson

On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Jesse Sheidlower<jester at panix.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:    American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:    Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:   Re: vivacious
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 08:50:25AM -0700, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>> NYT Magazine, 7/5/09, Mark Leibovitch, "On the Coast of Crazy" (about
>> Gavin Newsom), p. 29:
>>
>>  He is vivacious and something of a political thrill-seeker ...
>>
>> my eye was caught by "vivacious", which sounded a bit odd to me used
>> of a man. NOAD2 says:
>>  (esp. of a woman) attractively lively and animated
>>
>> (AHD4 and the OED have no note.)
>>
>> raw google webhits have "she is vivacious" slightly ahead of "he is
>> vivacious", but only slightly. and the relevant OED cites are pretty
>> well balanced. so i'm not sure why i (and NOAD2) associate
>> "vivacious" with women more than men.
>
> FWIW, I share this association.
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
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--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Mark Twain

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