[Ads-l] _co-ed_: obsolete?

[Ben Zimmer]

Coincidentally, Allan Metcalf has just written about the obsolescence of
"coed" for the Chronicle:

https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2018/04/24/vanished-from-campus-language-the-coed/


On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 8:44 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> Obsolete, or at least obsolescent, as a noun, not as an adjective.  Note
> too that the noun, like “blonde”, denotes just women with blond hair, while
> the adjective is not so restricted:
>
> noun: co-ed
>         • 1.
> a female student at a co-educational institution.
>
> adjective: co-ed
>         • 1.
> (of an institution or system) co-educational.
>
>
> So, co-ed soccer, co-ed dance tryouts, co-ed institution, naked co-ed
> volleyball: sí “a coed”, “coeds”, etc.: no.
>
> LH
>
>
> > On Apr 20, 2018, at 4:35 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Narrator providing background WRT UC Santa Cruz and Cabrillo College:
> >
> > "The female students are called 'co-eds'."
> >
> > Well, of course. Everybody knows that "Betty Co-ed has lips of red for
> > Harvard," even though, during the years in which the relevant song was
> > popular, there were no co-eds at Harvard.
> >
>

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