Pairs of Words and Negative Connotations

In my last post, I commented on the non-parallel uses of the words "widow" and "widower" and the ways in which these two supposed paired words are used unequally. Something that is typical of non-parallel gender terms is that the female word of the pair can often have negative connotations while the male word remains positive. Examples of this unequal usage are referred to as semantic derogation.

As well as "widow" and "widower", other examples are "master" and "mistress" and "bachelor" and "spinster". While both "master" and "mistress" were used in the Victorian era in examples such as "Master of the House" or "Mistress of the House" and can be used today as in "Master of Ceremonies" or "Mistress of Ceremonies" at stage performances or events, "mistress" unfortunately gained sexual connotations referring to the lover of a married man. By searching on Google, I found that there were 18 results showing dislike of the term used in this sense - not surprising given the connotations of this particular usage.

"Bachelor" is a word that has very positive connotations, while "spinster" has become very negative and is to many people an old-fashioned word. When searching to see the attitudes of people towards the words "spinster" and "bachelor", a search on Google reveals 38 results of people disliking the term "spinster" but just three results showing a dislike of "bachelor". I personally dislike the connotations of "bachelor" myself and would prefer to simply say I am single.

Returning to the words "widow" and "widower", it is again not surprising that a search on Google reveals a dislike of the term "widow" due to its negative connotations, with 33 results appearing. But only 10 results appeared that referred to dislike of the term "widower". Once again, this shows that the male term in positive and the female term is negative.

It is good to see that some people give their views on these words - after all, language is important as it constructs the world we live in. I hope that more people can take notice of language and equality issues. I always find it annoying that people who point out inequality in language uses are sometimes accused of "political correctness" or "PC gone mad". Striving for equality in language use is not "political correctness".