[lit-ideas] Re: Geary on thermoreception and genderism
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:58:16 -0700
JL wrote
Geary:
"The "feels like" temperature is for drama queens who want to complain more
than they have a right to."
Oddly, I discussed this once.
Apparently, the correct spelling should be 'drama queAn'.
No, it shouldn't. A drama queen (you could look it up) is a person who
over-dramatizes ordinary events, in a way that calls attention to
herself or himself. This is a usually said in friendly acceptance of the
behaviour. A quean, on the other hand, is usually a prostitute or a
woman of 'loose morals' (if they still have those outside of books).
OED. Originally: a woman, a female. Later: a bold or impudent woman; a
hussy; spec. a prostitute. Also in extended use.
In early Middle English as a general term of abuse, passing (esp. in
16-17th centuries) into a more specific term of disparagement.
Byron, Don Juan: Canto VI VI. xcvi, This martial scold, This modern
Amazon and queen of queans.
> In Indo-European, 'quean' is 'gunw', the woman--. While 'king' refers
to a male monarch, only English changes the root when it comes to a
female monarch. In Denmark, as
> Geary's brother may testify, the Female Kingess is never a 'queAn'.
The root of what? I must have missed something.
In Engish, 'quean' is used to refer to the 'gender' variant of a 'queen',
or 'woman'. In the times of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, English queens were
never referred to as Queens. That would have been derogatory, as if to refer
to the king as 'our man' -- for 'queen' meant plain 'woman' in
Anglo-Saxon.
OED. A woman, esp. a noblewoman; a wife, esp. of an important man. Obs. rare.
Even in Old English, cw{emac}n is not the usual term for 'woman' or 'wife'; it
is used in this sense only in poetry.
There were indeed Anglo-Saxon queens, e.g. Queen Elfrida and Queen
Ethelfleda
Robert Paul,
re-living the past
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