Kai MacTane wrote: > In Old High German, there were two major types of "men": "wo-men" and > "wer-men". "Wo-men" were female and "wer-men" male. The "wer" in > "wer-man" is cognate with the Latin "vir", which also means "man" (in > our current sense of "adult male human"). I just finished reading Egalia's Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg (ISBN:0-93118-8342). It is a "White Man's Burden" style role reversal, covering the "masculinist movement" in a matriarchal society. They use "wim"/"wom", "menwim"/"menwom", and "huwom" (Though "wom" is a perfectly acceptable way to refer to "huwoms" in general.) My favorite modification was "Lordies & Gentlewim". The modifications in language aren't so dense that you lose track of what is going on. The only word that I didn't get immediatly was the equivalent of "lesbian", (I can't recall the word now.) meaning, of course, homosexual menwim. (Homosexual wom are just "gay".) It is used on the first page, with little context. Once it becomes a theme it makes perfect sense. It is also funny as all get out in places. I don't know that everyone would find it funny, but I was busting out laughing at certain parts. Interesting thing is it is a translation from German. I speak so little German that I couldn't read it as a whole, but I'd be interested in hearing how the modified vocabulary comes across in German. Anyway, I highly reccommend it. You can get it on Half.com for $2.50 + S&H. (Likely due to it being required reading in more than a few Women's Studies classes.) --Avery _______________________________________________ techtalk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.linux.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/techtalk
