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Alec McKenzie
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 4:15 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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Matthew Huntbach <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote:
| Quote: | On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Areff wrote:
Tony Cooper wrote:
Has the word "illegitimate" never come to your vocabulary?
Of course it has -- it's the usual adjective used to describe a child
born out of wedlock. I sometimes humorously use "nonmarital child", which
IIRC is the statutory euphemism employed in New York State (ERKCC).
Is for any need for such an adjective at all? In the part of London
where I live only a minority of children are born to parents who are
a married couple, and while this is particularly high, it's no longer
considered anything unusual or shameful anywhere else I know in the UK
for a child to be born out of wedlock. It seems to be fairly standard
practice to get married after having children, in a white dress with
the daughters as bridesmaids. This would have been regarded as shocking
probably just twenty years ago.
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There was a time when "illegitimate" did not merely describe a
child born out of wedlock; it had a stricter definition:
conceived in adultery.
--
Alec McKenzie
mckenzie@despammed.com |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:15 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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Matthew Huntbach wrote:
| Quote: | On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Areff wrote:
Tony Cooper wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 19:52:26 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrote:
When I was a kid, we learned that "bastard" was the male form of "bitch",
much like "warlock" was the male form of "witch" (or "people" the plural
of "person"). I didn't learn the "nonmarital child" meaning of 'bastard'
until many years after learning the common usage of 'bastard'.
Has the word "illegitimate" never come to your vocabulary?
Of course it has -- it's the usual adjective used to describe a child
born out of wedlock. I sometimes humorously use "nonmarital child", which
IIRC is the statutory euphemism employed in New York State (ERKCC).
Is for any need for such an adjective at all?
|
An example I found where New York State's statutes use the term is in the
laws governing intestate succession. For example, a "nonmarital child"
inherits from his father under certain circumstances (basically when it's
demonstrated that the father is the father). Under the
traditional rules, such a child would not have had any intestacy
inheritance rights from the paternal line, thus the need for the statute
when it was enacted. |
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Bob Cunningham
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:46 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 06:29:19 GMT, Jim Lawton
<ucan@use.your.initiative> said:
| Quote: | On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:17:46 GMT, Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:06:54 GMT, Jim Lawton
ucan@use.your.initiative> said:
[...]
Because she has the same name as her mother had before
she [her mother] was married, then that suggests that she
is a bastard.
I know "bastard" is generally recognized to be a
gender-neutral word, but it just doesn't seem right to me to
call a female a bastard.
Googling finds some support for my feeling, including about
560 hits on "bastardess".
But "she was a b." and "she is a b." both get in excess of 200 hits. As you say
"bastard" is gender neutral, but my Collins, while having it so, specifies that
/as a term of abuse/ it refers to men only.
|
If you read it very carefully, does it really say that?
Other dictionaries have definitions typified by the
following from _Random House Webster's Unabridged_:
2. Slang. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly
disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires
on my car. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard
broke his leg.
A casual reader might be misled by "esp. a man", but it's a
separate sense from the one that uses "person".
The distinction is clearer in the _New Shorter Oxford_,
which has
5 An unpleasant or unfortunate person or thing;
(in weakened sense) a chap, a fellow. colloq. M19.
There the tag "(in weakened sense)" distinguishes the two
senses more clearly.
I don't believe I've heard "bastard" used in that nonabusive
sense, but I would probably understand a speaker's intent if
the context made it clear.
But in the abusive sense, both dictionaries -- and some
others -- define "bastard" with the gender-free "person". |
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Linz
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:24 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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"Matthew Huntbach" <mmh@dcs.qmul.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.61.0507221007340.3295@frank.dcs.qmul.ac.uk...
[bastard]
| Quote: | Is for any need for such an adjective at all? In the part of
London where I live only a minority of children are born to
parents who are a married couple, and while this is particularly
high, it's no longer considered anything unusual or shameful
anywhere else I know in the UK for a child to be born out of
wedlock. It seems to be fairly standard practice to get married
after having children, in a white dress with the daughters as
bridesmaids. This would have been regarded as shocking probably
just twenty years ago.
|
When I got married earlier this year (not in white, it wouldn't have
suited me) one of my net friends pointed that this meant that
YoungBloke would no longer be a bastard. Another friend was greatly
insulted on my behalf that he had called YB a bastard. I thought his
comment amusing, and pointed out that not only would he no longer be a
bastard, he was in the happy position of no longer ever having been a
bastard, marriage allowing us to re-register his birth as to married
parents. |
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Jim Lawton
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 8:38 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 13:46:17 GMT, Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 22 Jul 2005 06:29:19 GMT, Jim Lawton
ucan@use.your.initiative> said:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:17:46 GMT, Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote:
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 12:06:54 GMT, Jim Lawton
ucan@use.your.initiative> said:
[...]
Because she has the same name as her mother had before
she [her mother] was married, then that suggests that she
is a bastard.
I know "bastard" is generally recognized to be a
gender-neutral word, but it just doesn't seem right to me to
call a female a bastard.
Googling finds some support for my feeling, including about
560 hits on "bastardess".
But "she was a b." and "she is a b." both get in excess of 200 hits. As you say
"bastard" is gender neutral, but my Collins, while having it so, specifies that
/as a term of abuse/ it refers to men only.
If you read it very carefully, does it really say that?
|
You know, it doesn't. You see, I've got this worrying theory about the
impermanence of reality - I would have sworn that was what it said, but then
what it actually (let's say now  says is much as you describe.
Maybe if I creep up on it again in the early morning, I'll find it says what I
thought it did once more. Or - hey, it couldn't just be old age?
| Quote: | Other dictionaries have definitions typified by the
following from _Random House Webster's Unabridged_:
2. Slang. a vicious, despicable, or thoroughly
disliked person: Some bastard slashed the tires
on my car. a person, esp. a man: The poor bastard
broke his leg.
A casual reader might be misled by "esp. a man", but it's a
separate sense from the one that uses "person".
The distinction is clearer in the _New Shorter Oxford_,
which has
5 An unpleasant or unfortunate person or thing;
(in weakened sense) a chap, a fellow. colloq. M19.
There the tag "(in weakened sense)" distinguishes the two
senses more clearly.
I don't believe I've heard "bastard" used in that nonabusive
sense, but I would probably understand a speaker's intent if
the context made it clear.
But in the abusive sense, both dictionaries -- and some
others -- define "bastard" with the gender-free "person".
|
--
Jim
"a single species has come to dominate ...
reproducing at bacterial levels, almost as an
infectious plague envelops its host"
http://tinyurl.com/c88xs |
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Peter Moylan
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:12 am
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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Matthew Huntbach turpitued:
| Quote: | Is for any need for such an adjective at all? In the part of London
where I live only a minority of children are born to parents who are
a married couple, and while this is particularly high, it's no longer
considered anything unusual or shameful anywhere else I know in the UK
for a child to be born out of wedlock.
|
The other day, when Lleyton Hewitt married Hoss Cartwright, there
were some comments to the effect that the wedding couldn't go ahead
until she was seeded.
The child is well advanced, I gather. Somebody told me that a recent
ultrasound showed that the child is already more mature than the
father.
--
Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au
http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jul 25, 2005 6:14 pm
Post subject: Re: "bastardess", "bastardo", "bastarda" [was: Re: Do you k |
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Peter Moylan wrote:
| Quote: | Matthew Huntbach turpitued:
[...]
it's no longer
considered anything unusual or shameful anywhere else I know in
the
UK for a child to be born out of wedlock.
The other day, when Lleyton Hewitt married Hoss Cartwright, there
were some comments to the effect that the wedding couldn't go ahead
until she was seeded.
[...] |
A friend of my son's proudly showed us the room he'd "done up" as a
nursery, casually commenting that he and his partner had planned to
get married, but couldn't now there was a baby on the way.
--
Mike. |
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