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Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words
An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language--and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary English once had for women's bodies, experiences, and sexuality
So many of the words we use to articulate the experiences women share feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for the experiences that women encounter in their daily lives?
Mother Tongue is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women's sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women's paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language's ability to insightfully articulate women's shared experiences by examining the long-forgotten words once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs. Nuttall also tells the story of words like womb and breast, whose meanings have changed over time, as well as how anatomical words such as hysteria and hysterical came to have such loaded legacies.
Inspired by today's heated debates about words like womxn and menstruators--and also by more personal conversations between her and her teenage daughter--Nuttall describes the profound transformation of the English language. In the process, she unearths some surprisingly progressive thinking that challenges our assumptions about the past--and, in some cases, puts our twenty-first-century society to shame.
So many of the words we use to articulate the experiences women share feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for the experiences that women encounter in their daily lives?
Mother Tongue is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women's sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women's paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language's ability to insightfully articulate women's shared experiences by examining the long-forgotten words once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs. Nuttall also tells the story of words like womb and breast, whose meanings have changed over time, as well as how anatomical words such as hysteria and hysterical came to have such loaded legacies.
Inspired by today's heated debates about words like womxn and menstruators--and also by more personal conversations between her and her teenage daughter--Nuttall describes the profound transformation of the English language. In the process, she unearths some surprisingly progressive thinking that challenges our assumptions about the past--and, in some cases, puts our twenty-first-century society to shame.
9 pages, Audiobook
First published August 29, 2023
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About the author
Jenni Nuttall
1 book52 followersDr Jenni Nuttall is an academic who has been teaching and research medieval literature at the University of Oxford for the last twenty years. She’s thus had a lot of practice at making old words seem interesting. She has a DPhil from Oxford and completed the University of East Anglia’s MA in Creative Writing. Mother Tongue is her first book for the general reader.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 215 reviews
September 18, 2023
Until I was about 40% through, this was a 2-star book for me. There's already a glut of etymology books, to the point that I didn't see anything to distinguish this one from other "history of taboo words" books. It's a crowded field, and Nuttall doesn't give a case for why readers should be interested in her book in particular.
In an early chapter, Nuttall talks about the history of words for cis female reproductive organs and mentions that some people find phrases like "people with uteruses," etc., to be dehumanizing. She then writes that to have this argument we should know where the words come from. That's a statement that needs justification, which Nuttall doesn't provide. There are plenty of examples of words whose history isn't relevant to how the word is used today. Christmas celebrations aren't restricted to celebrating Mass, and a fetus is not a baby regardless of the word's etymology. I don't need to be able to recite the history of the word "uterus" to notice that the phrase "people with uteruses" has the word "people" in it.
As a queer uterus owner, I'm pretty attuned to anti-trans dog whistles. I was willing to dismiss Nuttall's both-sidesing of a TERF-specific brand of respectability politics as possibly something she doesn't realize is so fraught until I got to her discussion of the etymology around words related to queerness. Nuttall tries to sneak in the same "some people have reclaimed it and some people reject it as a slur" both sidesing. My issue with Nuttall giving the opposing sides of these disagreements equal weight is they do not carry equal weight. Protests against inclusive language invariably accompany anti-trans bigotry. These complaints have always been a transparent way of demonstrating a rejection of trans people without accepting accountability for more explicit bigotry. Queer people and their allies get enough of that bullshit from Graham Linehan's online flying monkeys. We don't need Nuttall trying to sneak it into ostensibly feminist nonfiction.
In an early chapter, Nuttall talks about the history of words for cis female reproductive organs and mentions that some people find phrases like "people with uteruses," etc., to be dehumanizing. She then writes that to have this argument we should know where the words come from. That's a statement that needs justification, which Nuttall doesn't provide. There are plenty of examples of words whose history isn't relevant to how the word is used today. Christmas celebrations aren't restricted to celebrating Mass, and a fetus is not a baby regardless of the word's etymology. I don't need to be able to recite the history of the word "uterus" to notice that the phrase "people with uteruses" has the word "people" in it.
As a queer uterus owner, I'm pretty attuned to anti-trans dog whistles. I was willing to dismiss Nuttall's both-sidesing of a TERF-specific brand of respectability politics as possibly something she doesn't realize is so fraught until I got to her discussion of the etymology around words related to queerness. Nuttall tries to sneak in the same "some people have reclaimed it and some people reject it as a slur" both sidesing. My issue with Nuttall giving the opposing sides of these disagreements equal weight is they do not carry equal weight. Protests against inclusive language invariably accompany anti-trans bigotry. These complaints have always been a transparent way of demonstrating a rejection of trans people without accepting accountability for more explicit bigotry. Queer people and their allies get enough of that bullshit from Graham Linehan's online flying monkeys. We don't need Nuttall trying to sneak it into ostensibly feminist nonfiction.
June 23, 2023
3.5 out of 5
NetGalley provided me an ARC of Mother Tongue and I was overjoyed to read this book.
Covering the evolution of women’s words, this book examines how modern words about womanhood have changed or been warped over time. With nine chapters that examine the largest aspects of being a woman, readers are guided through Old English, Latin, and all Germanic roots to better understand how language can be influenced by more than just words. This book was overall very informative and I learned a lot. The chapters particularly on menstruation and jobs were enlightening as these areas seem to be two of the biggest that men have influenced. Throughout the whole book, the element of patriarchy and misogyny is applied to the growth of many words, and while you don’t see it with much thought, once reviewed, it is impossible to see how men haven’t influenced women’s words.
While there was a lot that I liked about this book, there were often when I felt the writing was inaccessible as the author often wrote out sentences in Old English. In many cases, Old English would be followed by the Modern English translation. Still, rather than it is helpful, I found this repetition to be disorienting (especially since it wasn’t done every time, I would often spend time trying to figure out the Old English only to realize then the Modern translation was/wasn’t there). This and the overall writing style further highlight (at least to me) that being a subject-matter expert does not mean you should be a writer. Additionally, I understand the author is British and this book focuses on the Germanic and Latin/Greek roots for many of these words, but I felt like something was missing as there was no mention of how non-European languages might have influenced or affected the growth of women’s words. This is just a note, nothing against the book as again, it is about Modern English.
I would say my largest issue came at the end of this book, and it could have just been the way I read it, however the final chapter and the “After Words” briefly mentioned the increased use/desire for gender-neutral language. This wasn’t explored very much and it felt dismissive to mostly ignore this linguistic change in modern language and society. As a non-binary individual, I would have appreciated the author’s expanded thoughts on this matter and, potentially more in the “After Words” about how this neutrality change affects language and the importance of pronouns/inclusive language.
That being said, I learned a lot from this book and did enjoy it a lot. There were some gaps and as an ARC, I assume the final product will be edited a bit more, but I’m grateful for the chance to read this book early.
NetGalley provided me an ARC of Mother Tongue and I was overjoyed to read this book.
Covering the evolution of women’s words, this book examines how modern words about womanhood have changed or been warped over time. With nine chapters that examine the largest aspects of being a woman, readers are guided through Old English, Latin, and all Germanic roots to better understand how language can be influenced by more than just words. This book was overall very informative and I learned a lot. The chapters particularly on menstruation and jobs were enlightening as these areas seem to be two of the biggest that men have influenced. Throughout the whole book, the element of patriarchy and misogyny is applied to the growth of many words, and while you don’t see it with much thought, once reviewed, it is impossible to see how men haven’t influenced women’s words.
While there was a lot that I liked about this book, there were often when I felt the writing was inaccessible as the author often wrote out sentences in Old English. In many cases, Old English would be followed by the Modern English translation. Still, rather than it is helpful, I found this repetition to be disorienting (especially since it wasn’t done every time, I would often spend time trying to figure out the Old English only to realize then the Modern translation was/wasn’t there). This and the overall writing style further highlight (at least to me) that being a subject-matter expert does not mean you should be a writer. Additionally, I understand the author is British and this book focuses on the Germanic and Latin/Greek roots for many of these words, but I felt like something was missing as there was no mention of how non-European languages might have influenced or affected the growth of women’s words. This is just a note, nothing against the book as again, it is about Modern English.
I would say my largest issue came at the end of this book, and it could have just been the way I read it, however the final chapter and the “After Words” briefly mentioned the increased use/desire for gender-neutral language. This wasn’t explored very much and it felt dismissive to mostly ignore this linguistic change in modern language and society. As a non-binary individual, I would have appreciated the author’s expanded thoughts on this matter and, potentially more in the “After Words” about how this neutrality change affects language and the importance of pronouns/inclusive language.
That being said, I learned a lot from this book and did enjoy it a lot. There were some gaps and as an ARC, I assume the final product will be edited a bit more, but I’m grateful for the chance to read this book early.
September 5, 2023
For me, Chapter 6 of this book was a fascinating study in women's labor and word etymology. Did you know that the word "dairy" derives from the Old English dæge, meaning an enslaved woman or female servant? It originally had nothing to do with milk per se but rather with the farm-hand women who might be charged with milking the animals. Far from being a polite designation for a woman of high status, the word "lady" was actually a compound of hlæf (loaf) and dæge (worker) and referred to a woman of low status within the household, primarily responsible for bread-kneading. So many pejorative words today are rooted in histories of women's work. While "drudge" generally means any kind of servile work, in the seventeenth century "drudge" was actually a synonym for a maid. Similarly, "wench" referred to a young female servant but came to mean, because of caricatures of lascivious young women, a prostitute. On the other hand, "spinster" meant a woman who spins wool—a common labor for single women who were precariously employed—but over time, it came to mean an unmarried older woman. Some words ameliorated (such as "lady") and others developed pejorative connotations (such as "wench" and "spinster") and others took on entirely new meanings (such as "dairy") but all these individual cases document the changing perceptions of women and women's work across centuries.
Overall, however, I think this book needs a lot of editing. Nuttall's book has a wide range of topics (women's bodies and anatomy, childbirth, breastfeeding, aging, work, and sexual violence) and it is a challenging task to combine all the etymologies of different words into a coherent story about womanhood in the Anglophone world. In Chapter 1, for example, there is an incisive discussion of how medieval people understood female genitalia (some saw the female anatomy as simply as an inversion of the male counterparts. Hence, if the penis is a sword-like organ, then the female body must have a corresponding sheath-like organ—the vagina, Latin for "sheath"). But the chapter also includes many circuitous digressions. For example, a paragraph about the tragedy of breast-cancer and mastectomies leads to a discussion about the ancient folk etymology of "Amazonian" meaning "without a breast". While Latin writers did read "Amazonian" as a Greek compound (a meaning "without" and mazos meaning "breast"), it was unclear how this etymology was relevant to a broader history of vocabularies of female anatomy in the English language—vocabularies often based on Aristotelian idealism rather than empirical knowledge. Many chapters lost focus and became a hodgepodge of lexical curiosities and platitudes. I support the ethical call to examine the misogynistic underpinning of many words but it needed to be more clearly narrativized into a cohesive story.
This is not a well-organized book. I was fascinated to read, at different, points about 17th- and 18th-century slang terms. "Ramp" (to climb") and "romp" (to play) were often used to describe a "rude, boisterous, awkward girl". For example, Mary Wollstonecraft in her 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women would say that "a girl, whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp". Nuttall's discussion of words here gives a clear sense of how language has been used to police and censure women's conduct in public, and it is relevant today. But unfortunately, the words "romp" and "ramp" were not in the index and I had trouble locating the discussion again. I was interested to look up two 17th-century pamphlets about cross-dressing—but the chapter does not give any specific details about the date. It would perhaps have been useful to include images in order to better aid the reader. Very often, poems and other texts are mentioned in the book, without full citation or references (there is never any block quotation either). It was difficult to follow Nuttall's reading of the poem without the full context. The book needed clearer organization, subheadings and more complete indexing.
But to return to the big picture, this is still a useful book. When we look at the longue durée of the English language, we can have a more expansive perspective on what language debates are really about. The word "girl" today is often considered a belittling term for women but it was once a gender-neutral word for children; the title "Mrs" might be sexist, implying that a woman earns her status through marriage, but prior to the 18th century, it was actually used for older women who owned businesses and had servants underneath them. Only in the 1740s did "Miss" begin to be used for an unmarried woman and "Mrs" for married women. What Nuttall's book so usefully shows is that contemporary debates about gendered language are not new—in fact, they are part-and-parcel of every reckoning with patriarchal misogyny. The fight is never about the words themselves but about the underlying prejudices and worldviews.
Overall, however, I think this book needs a lot of editing. Nuttall's book has a wide range of topics (women's bodies and anatomy, childbirth, breastfeeding, aging, work, and sexual violence) and it is a challenging task to combine all the etymologies of different words into a coherent story about womanhood in the Anglophone world. In Chapter 1, for example, there is an incisive discussion of how medieval people understood female genitalia (some saw the female anatomy as simply as an inversion of the male counterparts. Hence, if the penis is a sword-like organ, then the female body must have a corresponding sheath-like organ—the vagina, Latin for "sheath"). But the chapter also includes many circuitous digressions. For example, a paragraph about the tragedy of breast-cancer and mastectomies leads to a discussion about the ancient folk etymology of "Amazonian" meaning "without a breast". While Latin writers did read "Amazonian" as a Greek compound (a meaning "without" and mazos meaning "breast"), it was unclear how this etymology was relevant to a broader history of vocabularies of female anatomy in the English language—vocabularies often based on Aristotelian idealism rather than empirical knowledge. Many chapters lost focus and became a hodgepodge of lexical curiosities and platitudes. I support the ethical call to examine the misogynistic underpinning of many words but it needed to be more clearly narrativized into a cohesive story.
This is not a well-organized book. I was fascinated to read, at different, points about 17th- and 18th-century slang terms. "Ramp" (to climb") and "romp" (to play) were often used to describe a "rude, boisterous, awkward girl". For example, Mary Wollstonecraft in her 1792 Vindication of the Rights of Women would say that "a girl, whose spirits have not been damped by inactivity or innocence tainted by false shame, will always be a romp". Nuttall's discussion of words here gives a clear sense of how language has been used to police and censure women's conduct in public, and it is relevant today. But unfortunately, the words "romp" and "ramp" were not in the index and I had trouble locating the discussion again. I was interested to look up two 17th-century pamphlets about cross-dressing—but the chapter does not give any specific details about the date. It would perhaps have been useful to include images in order to better aid the reader. Very often, poems and other texts are mentioned in the book, without full citation or references (there is never any block quotation either). It was difficult to follow Nuttall's reading of the poem without the full context. The book needed clearer organization, subheadings and more complete indexing.
But to return to the big picture, this is still a useful book. When we look at the longue durée of the English language, we can have a more expansive perspective on what language debates are really about. The word "girl" today is often considered a belittling term for women but it was once a gender-neutral word for children; the title "Mrs" might be sexist, implying that a woman earns her status through marriage, but prior to the 18th century, it was actually used for older women who owned businesses and had servants underneath them. Only in the 1740s did "Miss" begin to be used for an unmarried woman and "Mrs" for married women. What Nuttall's book so usefully shows is that contemporary debates about gendered language are not new—in fact, they are part-and-parcel of every reckoning with patriarchal misogyny. The fight is never about the words themselves but about the underlying prejudices and worldviews.
October 10, 2023
I was so disappointed to rate this one so low because I was really excited to read it. Even after my initial disappointment of this being a look at words about women only in English and not a look at how women wrote about themselves from a global perspective (that one’s on me for not reading the cover copy more closely), I was willing to go with the flow. But Nuttall undermined her own premise (the varied linguistic history of English words about women) to cater to veiled gender critical whinging about inclusive language, particularly to the condescension of trans men and nonbinary individuals. English is a remarkable, magpie, language because it has *never* been static—it’s always been changing. Hand-wringing about that not only makes one look like Cnut fighting the tides, but damages feminists in the fights we have against real oppression by casting off our allies in those fights. There is so much fantastic work being done in medieval/pre-modern gender studies and linguistics—read one of those books instead.
July 22, 2023
I enjoyed the majority of this, until it came to the end.
The modern uses referred to, do not remove women from discussions, but includes others.
The modern uses referred to, do not remove women from discussions, but includes others.
July 18, 2023
Mother Tongue delves into the history of women’s words, ranging from terminology to describe women’s bodies, menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, work, gender, and male harassment and violence.
It highlights the etymology of words we use now and those which fell out of fashion (I wish flowers as term for period hadn’t ended this way). It looks at different interpretations and how the words have altered their meaning through the years, words and cultures mostly shaped by men.
A great book for anyone who enjoys language and/or women’s history, which is once again being highlighted after centuries of neglect by historians pandering to patriarchal society. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
It highlights the etymology of words we use now and those which fell out of fashion (I wish flowers as term for period hadn’t ended this way). It looks at different interpretations and how the words have altered their meaning through the years, words and cultures mostly shaped by men.
A great book for anyone who enjoys language and/or women’s history, which is once again being highlighted after centuries of neglect by historians pandering to patriarchal society. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.
June 5, 2024
As a casual lover of etymology and narrative nonfiction that leans academic, Mother Tongue was an excellent read for me. It's cleverly structured around women's bodily experiences, starting with anatomy, then menstrual language, terminology around intercourse, childbearing, care (of children and old) and the economic burden, women's jobs, stages of life, male violence, and vocabulary of feminism. It builds from the physical to the personal to the experiential.
At the beginning of May, I read the book "It's Not Hysteria" by Dr Karen Tang which has detailed medical explanations about women's health. The first half of Mother Tongue that discusses the language of women's feels like it could be an expanded version of that introduction to that book. The rest is a deep dive into our collective conception of the words that describe women's bodies and work, and the history around it.
For scholars of old and middle English, this may not feel revolutionary, but for the casual former-academic with a background in sociology and the impact of religion on women's roles in society, this hit and absolute sweet spot.
Words matter. But words have not always been the same over time, and tracking their history can be helpful to shed new light on contemporary feminist movements and the understanding of gender and sex and the roles of women and those who inhabit bodies with with female anatomical parts.
At the beginning of May, I read the book "It's Not Hysteria" by Dr Karen Tang which has detailed medical explanations about women's health. The first half of Mother Tongue that discusses the language of women's feels like it could be an expanded version of that introduction to that book. The rest is a deep dive into our collective conception of the words that describe women's bodies and work, and the history around it.
For scholars of old and middle English, this may not feel revolutionary, but for the casual former-academic with a background in sociology and the impact of religion on women's roles in society, this hit and absolute sweet spot.
Words matter. But words have not always been the same over time, and tracking their history can be helpful to shed new light on contemporary feminist movements and the understanding of gender and sex and the roles of women and those who inhabit bodies with with female anatomical parts.
May 29, 2023
4.5/5
Just like many of the words that have been used to describe women's activities over the past two thousand years, Mother Tongue sells itself short by its description. Jenni Nuttall weaves a fascinating history of language used in different spheres of historical women's lives. This is not only a discussion of language, but Jenni offers a fascinating insight into social, economic, cultural and medical histories and women's parts in these. While quoting directly from her sources - so as to facilitate discussion of language - Nuttall qualifies and explains these quotations for the lay reader, frequently alluding to modern-day idioms and vocabulary which are familiar to us all.
On a personal level, I was delighted to see Nuttall use so many historical sources and references to modern scholarship I came across myself in my undergraduate degree (there probably aren't many readers who get quite so giddy about references to Henry Daniel's work on uroscopy, but as someone who wrote a dissertation on the practice, I was gleeful to see his name). More importantly, Nuttall does an excellent job of explaining both scholarship and historical records and their relevance to the subject of language, for every reader.
One theme Nuttall teases out in several chapters is a discussion of how past women's own language might have differed from their male contemporaries'. This, she acknowledges, is made difficult by a comparatively tiny body of works, but it was encouraging to read comparisons where they can be drawn. I would be fascinated to read more on this, particularly on any corpus analyses of women's and men's use of language. In fact, I frequently found myself pausing to Google people and topics referred to in Mother Tongue (I was highly intrigued by the life of Moll Cutpurse), and a more detailed bibliography would have been greatly appreciated.
Mother Tongue left me, as all good books do, with a to-research list as long as my arm and curiosity for a deeper dive.
Just like many of the words that have been used to describe women's activities over the past two thousand years, Mother Tongue sells itself short by its description. Jenni Nuttall weaves a fascinating history of language used in different spheres of historical women's lives. This is not only a discussion of language, but Jenni offers a fascinating insight into social, economic, cultural and medical histories and women's parts in these. While quoting directly from her sources - so as to facilitate discussion of language - Nuttall qualifies and explains these quotations for the lay reader, frequently alluding to modern-day idioms and vocabulary which are familiar to us all.
On a personal level, I was delighted to see Nuttall use so many historical sources and references to modern scholarship I came across myself in my undergraduate degree (there probably aren't many readers who get quite so giddy about references to Henry Daniel's work on uroscopy, but as someone who wrote a dissertation on the practice, I was gleeful to see his name). More importantly, Nuttall does an excellent job of explaining both scholarship and historical records and their relevance to the subject of language, for every reader.
One theme Nuttall teases out in several chapters is a discussion of how past women's own language might have differed from their male contemporaries'. This, she acknowledges, is made difficult by a comparatively tiny body of works, but it was encouraging to read comparisons where they can be drawn. I would be fascinated to read more on this, particularly on any corpus analyses of women's and men's use of language. In fact, I frequently found myself pausing to Google people and topics referred to in Mother Tongue (I was highly intrigued by the life of Moll Cutpurse), and a more detailed bibliography would have been greatly appreciated.
Mother Tongue left me, as all good books do, with a to-research list as long as my arm and curiosity for a deeper dive.
June 3, 2025
I love words, women and gender minorities, history, and linguistics, so i loved this. Someday i should read it with my eyes (rather than listen) and annotate it.
May 14, 2024
Impressively erudite, Nuttall wears her learning lightly in this highly engaging and entertaining book, which is as much a history of feminism as it is a history of the English language. Read it to find out exactly what “willy nilly” first meant…
January 7, 2024
Unfortunately, too medieval-English heavy for me.
February 27, 2024
I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's a bit etymology, a bit feminist history, and a whole lot of fascinating.
August 9, 2024
Interesting book with a lot of cool fun facts and stuff, but I was begging for it to be over
August 27, 2024
Recommend if you’re into Women’s history and linguistics!
January 25, 2024
A really enjoyable read. I generally like etimology books and this is no different. There is some surprising history, but the most interesting aspect of the topic to me is the shift that happened in relation to certain language being considered obscene and how many words were lost that way. It is interesitng to think of an alternative history where we had as many words and phrases for 'menstruation' as there are for 'masturbation'. If mamography was a part of popular culture and speech similar to 'prostate exam' and so on.
What is also interesting is how much of it applies to other languages. Most of the words are similar or basically the same because the come from latin and medical terminology and are introduced in the last century or two. There is also an overlap in how the words are used, and what are the assumptions and prejudices surrounding certain words.
Only bits I wish were either skipped or clarified were the TERFy stances around certain phrases - in my opinion the author should have clarified more clearly how they feel about the recent trends in inclusive language. The way it's left it feels either as an unnecessary addition to dicussion or as dogwhistle phrases.
4/5 would recommend to anyone interested in etimology and feminism.
What is also interesting is how much of it applies to other languages. Most of the words are similar or basically the same because the come from latin and medical terminology and are introduced in the last century or two. There is also an overlap in how the words are used, and what are the assumptions and prejudices surrounding certain words.
Only bits I wish were either skipped or clarified were the TERFy stances around certain phrases - in my opinion the author should have clarified more clearly how they feel about the recent trends in inclusive language. The way it's left it feels either as an unnecessary addition to dicussion or as dogwhistle phrases.
4/5 would recommend to anyone interested in etimology and feminism.
July 14, 2025
Here’s another “quick read” it took me forever to finish but which I finally wrapped up over spring break. The premise is pretty straightforward: the author looks at vocabulary having to do with women and investigates its origins in medieval literature all the way through to the nineteenth century or so. It’s divided into nine chapters: 1 is focused on words for female anatomy, 2 on menstruation-related words, 3 on words having to do with sex, 4 on words having to do with reproduction, childbirth, and abortion, 5 on words having to do with nursing, 6 on words having to do with work, 7 on words having to do with life stages (things like girl, maiden, matron, hag, etc.), 8 on words having to do with sexual or domestic violence, and 9 on words used to identify and critique gender roles.
I think it would make a good book club read–the tone is casual and personal, dotted with neologisms like “phallusy” and notes like, “If this was the poem which got Ovid exiled to the shores of the Black Sea in 8 AD, far from Rome’s high life, then good riddance to him” (224-25) or “Robert Burton, in his rambling, really-needs-an-editor book about depression…slavers that girls of fourteen and older ‘do offer themselves’ to men and ‘some plainly rage,’ some undoubtedly flirt and frolic and run riot. In your dreams, dear Robert” (194-95). At times the author reflects on her own experiences as a mother or an academic in comparison with women of the past. The organization has a bit of the stream of consciousness about it—one word’s etymology leads to the next such that by the time you’re three or four paragraphs in the link to the first word has become tenuous. I don’t know that that really bothered me, though; for as long as it took me to get through the whole book, individual chapters flowed pretty easily.
As someone interested in medieval literature, the history of the English language, and gender, there was a lot in here to interest me. I enjoyed the discussion of what is emphasized in different historical terms for menstruation (and if you’ve wondered about the history of the term “menstruation,” worry not, it’s in there!). The chapter on life stages was interesting as well—I don’t know that I had realized how recent our contemporary usage of “girl” is, or given much thought to the paucity of vocabulary to describe the years between youth and old age when it comes to women. It’s a book with a lot of interesting stories about everyday words, and some interesting words that are no longer in use for everyday ideas.
There are a few places, though, where I’d argue that the book fumbles a bit–I think the author is far too quick to dismiss the overlap in language between miscarriage and abortion, given especially recent years’ revelations of how often wanted pregnancies end in medically necessary abortions, and the nods to debates around trans-inclusive language leave something to be desired, as other reviewers have noted. Though of course it’s crucial to attend to misogyny as a driving force in debates around reproductive rights, transphobia has revealed itself with frightening rapidity to be a driving force in public debate as well, something I think Nuttall would have been aware of in 2023, or at least should have been. I’m sympathetic to her position as someone who wants to write a book for nonacademic audiences about a familiar subset of gendered vocabulary without wading into the field of medieval trans studies, or, for that matter, modern trans studies, clearly not her area of expertise. That said, I think if you’re going to acknowledge the contemporary debate at all, you have to do it sensitively and without oversimplifying or glossing over the ways in which the frameworks under discussion affect not only cis women but trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people.
In any event, I think there’s good material here for the word nerd who is also interested in a skewering of historical misogyny, but YMMV on how successful the connections to contemporary gender issues are.
I think it would make a good book club read–the tone is casual and personal, dotted with neologisms like “phallusy” and notes like, “If this was the poem which got Ovid exiled to the shores of the Black Sea in 8 AD, far from Rome’s high life, then good riddance to him” (224-25) or “Robert Burton, in his rambling, really-needs-an-editor book about depression…slavers that girls of fourteen and older ‘do offer themselves’ to men and ‘some plainly rage,’ some undoubtedly flirt and frolic and run riot. In your dreams, dear Robert” (194-95). At times the author reflects on her own experiences as a mother or an academic in comparison with women of the past. The organization has a bit of the stream of consciousness about it—one word’s etymology leads to the next such that by the time you’re three or four paragraphs in the link to the first word has become tenuous. I don’t know that that really bothered me, though; for as long as it took me to get through the whole book, individual chapters flowed pretty easily.
As someone interested in medieval literature, the history of the English language, and gender, there was a lot in here to interest me. I enjoyed the discussion of what is emphasized in different historical terms for menstruation (and if you’ve wondered about the history of the term “menstruation,” worry not, it’s in there!). The chapter on life stages was interesting as well—I don’t know that I had realized how recent our contemporary usage of “girl” is, or given much thought to the paucity of vocabulary to describe the years between youth and old age when it comes to women. It’s a book with a lot of interesting stories about everyday words, and some interesting words that are no longer in use for everyday ideas.
There are a few places, though, where I’d argue that the book fumbles a bit–I think the author is far too quick to dismiss the overlap in language between miscarriage and abortion, given especially recent years’ revelations of how often wanted pregnancies end in medically necessary abortions, and the nods to debates around trans-inclusive language leave something to be desired, as other reviewers have noted. Though of course it’s crucial to attend to misogyny as a driving force in debates around reproductive rights, transphobia has revealed itself with frightening rapidity to be a driving force in public debate as well, something I think Nuttall would have been aware of in 2023, or at least should have been. I’m sympathetic to her position as someone who wants to write a book for nonacademic audiences about a familiar subset of gendered vocabulary without wading into the field of medieval trans studies, or, for that matter, modern trans studies, clearly not her area of expertise. That said, I think if you’re going to acknowledge the contemporary debate at all, you have to do it sensitively and without oversimplifying or glossing over the ways in which the frameworks under discussion affect not only cis women but trans men, trans women, and nonbinary people.
In any event, I think there’s good material here for the word nerd who is also interested in a skewering of historical misogyny, but YMMV on how successful the connections to contemporary gender issues are.
January 23, 2024
This book was well on its way to four stars, but then it kind of fizzled out. I'm going to call this one 3.5, since I did stay up til 1:00 a.m. to finish it. I wasn't tired, but I should have gone to sleep by 11. But I figured I only had about 100 pages left, why not go for it?
This is Nuttall's first non-academic book. I haven't read any of her academic work (that I remember) but that idea is stressed frequently at the beginning of the book. It's surprisingly engaging, tho the use of first person and inserted opinions might still be a little too far from something that bills itself not as the pop-etymology of Bill Bryon's The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, but as something closer to the informative, accessibly academic John McWhorter. Nuttall is not as witty as either of them, but her choice of subjects demands to be taken very seriously.
The "women's words" she chooses are categorized according to function/event, then according to stage of life. I suppose you could also say it goes from essentialist to comprehensive. It starts with those words we use for female anatomy (and anatomy that only women have). And Nuttall does an interesting job of noting some of the histories where the historical record shows great variation in word choice. How did we get from "stones" to "ovaries?" Well, prior to the Enlightenment, most people believed that a woman was an inside-out man. He had testicles, referred to as his "stones" on the outside. They knew, for whatever reason/method/happenstance/don'tthinkaboutittoohard that women had a similar stone shaped organ near her womb, so those were probably her testicles. Same function, just inside-out (or in this case, gone outside-in). Then we get the Enlightenment and people willing to perform autopsies and while it's probably more of a coincidence that ovaries are women's gamete factories and analogous to men's testicles as gamete factories, they didn't take any chances with it and changed the name to refer to the function, not the shape. No note on whether or not the same thing happened for men, and I can't remember that much of The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-So-Common Words, only that "testicle" comes from the Latin for "witness" and "avocado" is the Nahautl word (or near enough) for testicle.
From there it goes in more functional stages: menstruation and menopause; sex; birth, breastfeeding, and babies; mothering, nurturing, and other forms of work; ages and stages (I did not know that "ghyrl," from which we derive girl, reserved for pre-pubescent females now was formerly a catchall term for prepubescent anybody. Nuttall doesn't tell us how things eventually shook out in a vernacular of boy and girl, but it makes you want to reread your Shakespeare and double check you understood); and finally violence, with a fairly comprehensive read of rape and its various synonyms, roots, and associated language of justice.
Nuttall may or may not hamper herself by reserving her analysis to documents and literature written in earliest English, as its Saxon-ness was waning in favor of the new Angle hotness, with all its Germanic syntactical tomfoolery, to the Georgian or Victorian era, depending on what she wanted to say. The Norman conquest gets the briefest gloss and I assumed it was because she assumed her reader would know all about its effect on language change; to that end she discussed a lot more of the variants in syntactic choice, the what and how of suffixes, for instance, than she did the when and why. And that's all well and good. It would have bloated the book and distracted from her larger overall point that English is, in so many ways, a remarkable language. The history of language evolution has ever been one of conquer: two groups have different languages. The two groups meet. They beef! The winners eventually override the loser's language, saving convenient syntax and vocabulary along the way, leaving little breadcrumbs of interest for anyone who cares to look. Yet Latin and French and More Latin and More French couldn't conquer the bizarre offshoot of a Germanic tribal tongue mixed with an already punchdrunk Saxon-Angle language that said, sure, we'll take some of your syntax but not all; some of your vocabulary but not all; we'll keep our own stuff when we feel like it, or not, our choice; we'll hang onto our thorn and wynn until we don't feel like it anymore; and as for the Church and the conquerors on the coast? Yeah, we'll grab that, too. We tend to think of the dramatic ascent of English as the world's powerhouse lingua franca as something that happened because America (for all values thereof). After all, English stands around in dark alleys in a trenchcoat, waiting for hapless languages to wander by so it can beat them up and take their vocabularies (and wallets, and oil) and stand over their mangled bodies chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" But no. It's always been like this. So, from Beowulf to the Industrial Revolution's end-- and most of the stuff after 1750 is euphemisms, because, jeezopete did people used to say and write the word "cunt" a lot.
There are a lot of women's words that come to mind that Nuttall doesn't talk about, but I understand that she's painting a picture, more impressionist than photo-realistic and 238 pages of this is already a lot for the average Patterson fan. And lot of those words are Third Industrial Revolution and Internet inspired. And again, her opinion on vocabulary and usage is always there to give you a little nudge toward what she thinks is best. She never does settle on a term for all the complexities of menstruation that she likes, bemoaning the fact that flux sounded great, but Shakespeare took it and made everybody understand it was only for bloody diarrhea that will kill you and 5000 of your men. I was like, "Cycle, babe. Cycle is a great word for it." But I guess that came along after the 1890-1910 cutoff. And by the time cycle came into a vogue as a polite way to discuss the topic in mixed company, flux was both a noun and a verb meaning to flow (I mean, I get it, Jenni; I do), but most often to the point of exclusively used within male spaces: physics and welding.
Okay! So, now that this review is half as long as the actual book, I will edit it up to four total stars. If you like etymology, chances are you'll like this book. If you don't know if you do or not, I don't know if this is the book I'd start with (start with Bryson), but definitely make your way back here, preferrably after you read Kory Stamper and can appreciate Nuttall's dictionary collection.
This is Nuttall's first non-academic book. I haven't read any of her academic work (that I remember) but that idea is stressed frequently at the beginning of the book. It's surprisingly engaging, tho the use of first person and inserted opinions might still be a little too far from something that bills itself not as the pop-etymology of Bill Bryon's The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way, but as something closer to the informative, accessibly academic John McWhorter. Nuttall is not as witty as either of them, but her choice of subjects demands to be taken very seriously.
The "women's words" she chooses are categorized according to function/event, then according to stage of life. I suppose you could also say it goes from essentialist to comprehensive. It starts with those words we use for female anatomy (and anatomy that only women have). And Nuttall does an interesting job of noting some of the histories where the historical record shows great variation in word choice. How did we get from "stones" to "ovaries?" Well, prior to the Enlightenment, most people believed that a woman was an inside-out man. He had testicles, referred to as his "stones" on the outside. They knew, for whatever reason/method/happenstance/don'tthinkaboutittoohard that women had a similar stone shaped organ near her womb, so those were probably her testicles. Same function, just inside-out (or in this case, gone outside-in). Then we get the Enlightenment and people willing to perform autopsies and while it's probably more of a coincidence that ovaries are women's gamete factories and analogous to men's testicles as gamete factories, they didn't take any chances with it and changed the name to refer to the function, not the shape. No note on whether or not the same thing happened for men, and I can't remember that much of The Dord, the Diglot, and an Avocado or Two: The Hidden Lives and Strange Origins of Common and Not-So-Common Words, only that "testicle" comes from the Latin for "witness" and "avocado" is the Nahautl word (or near enough) for testicle.
From there it goes in more functional stages: menstruation and menopause; sex; birth, breastfeeding, and babies; mothering, nurturing, and other forms of work; ages and stages (I did not know that "ghyrl," from which we derive girl, reserved for pre-pubescent females now was formerly a catchall term for prepubescent anybody. Nuttall doesn't tell us how things eventually shook out in a vernacular of boy and girl, but it makes you want to reread your Shakespeare and double check you understood); and finally violence, with a fairly comprehensive read of rape and its various synonyms, roots, and associated language of justice.
Nuttall may or may not hamper herself by reserving her analysis to documents and literature written in earliest English, as its Saxon-ness was waning in favor of the new Angle hotness, with all its Germanic syntactical tomfoolery, to the Georgian or Victorian era, depending on what she wanted to say. The Norman conquest gets the briefest gloss and I assumed it was because she assumed her reader would know all about its effect on language change; to that end she discussed a lot more of the variants in syntactic choice, the what and how of suffixes, for instance, than she did the when and why. And that's all well and good. It would have bloated the book and distracted from her larger overall point that English is, in so many ways, a remarkable language. The history of language evolution has ever been one of conquer: two groups have different languages. The two groups meet. They beef! The winners eventually override the loser's language, saving convenient syntax and vocabulary along the way, leaving little breadcrumbs of interest for anyone who cares to look. Yet Latin and French and More Latin and More French couldn't conquer the bizarre offshoot of a Germanic tribal tongue mixed with an already punchdrunk Saxon-Angle language that said, sure, we'll take some of your syntax but not all; some of your vocabulary but not all; we'll keep our own stuff when we feel like it, or not, our choice; we'll hang onto our thorn and wynn until we don't feel like it anymore; and as for the Church and the conquerors on the coast? Yeah, we'll grab that, too. We tend to think of the dramatic ascent of English as the world's powerhouse lingua franca as something that happened because America (for all values thereof). After all, English stands around in dark alleys in a trenchcoat, waiting for hapless languages to wander by so it can beat them up and take their vocabularies (and wallets, and oil) and stand over their mangled bodies chanting, "USA! USA! USA!" But no. It's always been like this. So, from Beowulf to the Industrial Revolution's end-- and most of the stuff after 1750 is euphemisms, because, jeezopete did people used to say and write the word "cunt" a lot.
There are a lot of women's words that come to mind that Nuttall doesn't talk about, but I understand that she's painting a picture, more impressionist than photo-realistic and 238 pages of this is already a lot for the average Patterson fan. And lot of those words are Third Industrial Revolution and Internet inspired. And again, her opinion on vocabulary and usage is always there to give you a little nudge toward what she thinks is best. She never does settle on a term for all the complexities of menstruation that she likes, bemoaning the fact that flux sounded great, but Shakespeare took it and made everybody understand it was only for bloody diarrhea that will kill you and 5000 of your men. I was like, "Cycle, babe. Cycle is a great word for it." But I guess that came along after the 1890-1910 cutoff. And by the time cycle came into a vogue as a polite way to discuss the topic in mixed company, flux was both a noun and a verb meaning to flow (I mean, I get it, Jenni; I do), but most often to the point of exclusively used within male spaces: physics and welding.
Okay! So, now that this review is half as long as the actual book, I will edit it up to four total stars. If you like etymology, chances are you'll like this book. If you don't know if you do or not, I don't know if this is the book I'd start with (start with Bryson), but definitely make your way back here, preferrably after you read Kory Stamper and can appreciate Nuttall's dictionary collection.
September 12, 2023
3.5-3.75 stars. Fascinating and entertaining, but the organization makes it hard to follow the threads of thought a lot of the time. Felt somehow incomplete, which I know is a by-product of the lack of sources relevant to the research itself, but it felt very narrow in scope and explanation. Much of it just seemed like the author's interpretations of things (albeit extremely knowledgeable and based in fact, I'm sure), rather than straight-up history.
did-not-finish
August 11, 2025waaaaay too wordy, i think half of the content could have been cut and the point would still get across the same. i learned some fun facts i guess but i skimmed through like the first 200 pages and then just gave up
December 4, 2025
GREAT read! super interesting
March 27, 2025
2.5⭐️ not as interesting as I thought it’d be and it dragged in some sections where there wa sa heavy focus on medieval poetry and the bible. felt like there was no real discussion around words like ‘menstruators’ etc, Nuttall just presents two basic sides to the argument which she implies are equal and doesn’t come to a conclusion. as someone who spends a lot of time writing about women & marginalised genders I don’t really feel like I got much out of this.
March 18, 2025
3.5/5
i found the flow and connectedness of the entomology to be a bit tricky to follow but overall a fascinating culmination of feminist linguistics and the different driving factors across origins and who was using them.
i know this is fairly current (includes the overturning of roe v wade), but would also have loved some collaboration with other voices, namely black and queer and/or trans perspectives.
some things that really stuck out to me:
- maternal mortality in US is 4x higher for black women than in UK will always shock me no matter how many times i hear it.
- lets bring back the word cunt!!
- of course Freud was the one who kept hysteria/hysterical alive to be used against women and their physical and mental health.
- woah the way men have talked about sexual assault, female ownership, rape, etc. is so paralleled and mirroring of current times…literally word for word at times.
lastly quite enjoy the sentiment of “i am a woman’s rights”. hoping everyone has peace and security moving forward as we, quite literally, fight for our rights and lives.
i found the flow and connectedness of the entomology to be a bit tricky to follow but overall a fascinating culmination of feminist linguistics and the different driving factors across origins and who was using them.
i know this is fairly current (includes the overturning of roe v wade), but would also have loved some collaboration with other voices, namely black and queer and/or trans perspectives.
some things that really stuck out to me:
- maternal mortality in US is 4x higher for black women than in UK will always shock me no matter how many times i hear it.
- lets bring back the word cunt!!
- of course Freud was the one who kept hysteria/hysterical alive to be used against women and their physical and mental health.
- woah the way men have talked about sexual assault, female ownership, rape, etc. is so paralleled and mirroring of current times…literally word for word at times.
lastly quite enjoy the sentiment of “i am a woman’s rights”. hoping everyone has peace and security moving forward as we, quite literally, fight for our rights and lives.
May 1, 2024
I was surprised to learn that "slut" originally meant lower class servant and had no sexual connotation. My suspicion is that lower class servants had no choice about giving in to sexual overtures from their employers if they wanted to remain employed. The employers would justify predatory behavior on the grounds that they were only "sluts". That's probably how the word came to have a sexual implication.
It bothered me that people once believed that a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape must have really consented. This is another case of predators trying to justify themselves. I'm glad that feminists have fought to establish that rape is rape. We are still fighting for the rights of victims.
If I were grading this book I'd give it an A-. The minus is for tedious or repetitive content.
For my blog version of this review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
It bothered me that people once believed that a woman who became pregnant as a result of rape must have really consented. This is another case of predators trying to justify themselves. I'm glad that feminists have fought to establish that rape is rape. We are still fighting for the rights of victims.
If I were grading this book I'd give it an A-. The minus is for tedious or repetitive content.
For my blog version of this review see https://shomeretmasked.blogspot.com/2...
August 26, 2024
*3.5 stars*
I enjoyed how this book blended etymology and history, with some of Jenni Nuttall's own personal experiences. It was fascinating to read about the origin of words related to the female experience and how it evolved over time. The final chapter had me raging that some girls who achieved high grades in the 11-plus exam were excluded from grammar schools to make way for some lower scoring boys in order to bring about more gender balance.
The reason I didn't rate this higher is that I found some parts of it a little dry, and my attention did drift occasionally, I'm sorry to say. I was ready for the book to end about 100-150 pages in. However, I persevered, and I am glad I did.
I enjoyed how this book blended etymology and history, with some of Jenni Nuttall's own personal experiences. It was fascinating to read about the origin of words related to the female experience and how it evolved over time. The final chapter had me raging that some girls who achieved high grades in the 11-plus exam were excluded from grammar schools to make way for some lower scoring boys in order to bring about more gender balance.
The reason I didn't rate this higher is that I found some parts of it a little dry, and my attention did drift occasionally, I'm sorry to say. I was ready for the book to end about 100-150 pages in. However, I persevered, and I am glad I did.
September 11, 2023
I was REALLY disappointed by this, partially because I was so excited to read it! It didn't seem to have a full thought. It traced back where the word came from, and occasionally gave an example of it's use, but nothing else. I was looking to understand how that word shaped thinking, the discourse on women and their roles in culture, and particularly WHY some words become so offensive. No such luck.
I don't recommend this. I'm a linguistics nerd and I really didn't enjoy this, and this is just short of popular linguistics IMO.
I don't recommend this. I'm a linguistics nerd and I really didn't enjoy this, and this is just short of popular linguistics IMO.
August 7, 2024
When my grandfather was alive, he would always ask us if we had any “tidbits” for him. The tidbits I gained from reading this book would have absolutely destroyed him and his sexist mentality.
Since he is no longer with us, I will instead have to share these “tidbits” to unsuspecting people who simply wanted to have a normal conversation but made the questionable decision to have a conversation with me. Etymology has always fascinated me and I’m so glad I read this book.
Since he is no longer with us, I will instead have to share these “tidbits” to unsuspecting people who simply wanted to have a normal conversation but made the questionable decision to have a conversation with me. Etymology has always fascinated me and I’m so glad I read this book.
April 16, 2024
idiosyncratic! I was drawn to this book because what a premise - how do words and women intermingle, correlate, impact one another throughout time. There were times the author seemed to dive into tangents or pockets that may or may not have connected to the rest of the book, but, ultimately, I found the history to be engrossing.
June 1, 2024
A fascinating look at the way the language used by and about women has changed through the centuries. Both entertaining and informative, but a bittersweet read as Jenni Nuttall sadly died in 2024.
March 10, 2025
As a fan of etymology and women’s history this was a very interesting read.
March 19, 2025
Excellent popular history of the English language/ women's history.
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