Hmm.
There’s a theory that, at one time, “man” was a gender neutral term for persons and we called males “weremen” and obviously women “women”
That probably isn’t true, but it’s fun to think about a world where that was reversed.
EDIT Also evidently there was wifmann and wapman, which is an even funnier world to imagine.
“Were” is cognate to Latin vir ‘man’—cf. “werewolf” (‘man-wolf’).
“Woman” comes from a compound meaning “woman-person” (wif-mæn, cf. “wife”); a man was a wæpned-mæn (“weapon-person” or “penis-person”). The lexical narrowing of “man” to mean ‘male’ happened later, and it was indeed originally a gender-neutral term.
penis-person
I can’t read that without thinking of “Democracy Manifest”
Blame the Anglo-Saxons for that one. It was their idea.
According to this, whether or not it is real:
And we also see wæpman being specifically to refer to a man in relation to penetrative sex.
Not what you asked for, but Welsh has irregular plurals for adults and children, too:
Adult: oedolyn
Adults: oedolionChild: plentyn
Children: plant(Still learning, so I’m not too sure why or how)
Always knew Wales was essentially living in a different dimension… 🤔 (lol, thanks for the tidbit!)
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One of the best shower thoughts i’ve seen! 💖
I’ve met some sweet southerners that already call children “childs.”
They’re cute until the terrible fourty twos.
yesn’t
Now this is a shower thought.
“en” used to be the plural before “s”. Think “oxen” for example.
Certified shower thought
“Irwin, what is the plural of ox?”
— “Oxen! The farmer used his oxen!”
“Brian, what is the plural of box?”
— “Boxen. I bought two boxen of donuts.”
“Irwin, what is the plural of goose?”
— “Geese! I saw a flock of geese!”
“Brian, what is the plural of moose?”
— “MOOSEN!”
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Boxen is also the plural for box in the german language.
Wow, I had no idea! That’s awesome.
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