debray (04/30/83)
Aah! I'd sworn to myself that I'd posted my last article on English and the women's movement, but I've been goaded into breaking my vow! "Consider the use of prefixes as related to the women's movement. Prefixes are used to denote a sub-class. Neither pre-fixes nor suf-fixes can be as important as fixes. A sub-set is looked down on by all the REAL sets. Is this applied (perhaps unconsciously) to wo-men, fe-male?" When a prefix is used to denote a subclass, the prefix (naturally!) indicates the distinguishing property of that subclass. Are we supposed to take seriously the suggestion that the "prefixes" wo- and fe- refer to the feminine gender of members of that subclass? Are we supposed to believe that felines are really a subclass of lines of a certain gender? Not *one* dictionary that I've referred to (and that includes the OED, Webster's and Chamber's) recognize either "fe-" or "wo-" as legal English prefixes. Perhaps the author of that article knows something all these lexicographers didn't? Saumya Debray ... allegra!sbcs!debray