rdf-syntax-grammar
mods:
  schema location: http://www.loc.gov/mods/v3 http://www.loc.gov/standards/mods/v3/mods-3-2.xsd
  title info:
    title: Mother tongue
    sub title: the surprising history of women's words
  name:
    name part: Nuttall, Jenni
    name part: 1975-
    role:
      role term: creator
    role:
      role term: author.
  type of resource: text
  genre: bibliography
  origin info:
    place:
      place term: nyu
    date issued: 2023
    copyright date: 2023
    issuance: monographic
  language:
    language term: eng
  physical description:
    form: print
    extent: 292 pages ; 22 cm.
  abstract: An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women's bodies, experiences and sexuality. So many of the words that we use to chronicle women's lives 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 women's 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 that 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 by more personal conversations with her teenage daughter, Nuttall describes the profound transformations 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. Mother Tongue is a rich, provocative book for anyone who loves language and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.
  table of contents: Introduction: Women's words -- Cors : words for female anatomy -- Flux : menstrual language -- Lust : sex and its terms -- Matrix : the womb's words -- Nurse : the language of care -- Industry : working words -- Ghyrles and hags : words for ages and stages -- Fors : naming male violence -- Custom and tyranny : finding feminism's vocabulary.
  note: Jenni Nuttall.
  note: Includes bibliographical references and index.
  subject:
    topic: English language
    topic: Etymology
  subject:
    topic: Women
    topic: Terminology
  subject:
    topic: Women
    topic: Language
  subject:
    topic: Feminism
  subject:
    topic: HISTORY / Women
  classification: PE1574 .N88 2023
  classification: 422
  identifier: 9780593299579
  identifier: 0593299574
  identifier: 9780593299586
  identifier: 2023028683
  record info:
    record content source: DLC
    record creation date: 230717
    record change date: 20231025141406.6
    record identifier: in00004748387