turn-about

[Laurence Horn]

At 2:44 AM -0400 6/11/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Why not?
>
>-Wison

Among other things, even though "woman" is diachronically related to
"man", at the time when it was formed (as wi:f-man), _man_ meant
'human', sex-neutrally, so there was wif-man or 'female person' and
waepned-man or 'penis'd man' (also carl-man).  At least historically,
"woman" never contained *our* "man".  Of course it could be argued
that's there's been reanalysis involved for the synchronic language.
I would agree with Mark that "man-izer" (which I also have from a New
Yorker cartoon over a decade ago, with the same telltale hyphen for
self-conscious coinage) is an analogical formation (rather than a
clip), as in "misandrist" based on "misogynist".

LH

>On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 2:55 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
>>  Subject:      Re: turn-about
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  I'd say "analog" rather than "clip", since "man" is not a clipping of
>>  "woman" except orthographically and diachronically. In support, I note that
>>  Marshall hyphenated the word.
>>
>>  m a m
>>
>>  On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 1:54 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>  > Some references appear to be to particularly promiscuous gay men.
>>>
>>>  Looks like a clip of "womanizer," in that case,
>>>
>  >> -Wilson

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