字幕列表 影片播放 列印英文字幕 Is English sexist? I'm serious! Look, take the phrase 'man up'. This is a phrasal verb that we use to tell someone to be brave, to get over the difficulty that's in front of them. To man up. It's not to woman up, it's to man up. But why can't it be to woman up? Women are brave, there's as brave as men are, so why don't we use to woman up. So this got me thinking how sexist is the English language? We're going to find out right after this. These days there is a lot in the media about gender equality and how male and female roles are being represented. Certainly you look at the #MeToo movement and the film industry to see that it's a big issue right now. And that got me thinking about English and the language we use and have we updated the vocabulary that we use to accurately represent who we are and the society that we live in. Now we have talked about the phrase man up, let's look at other examples. Take the word 'to nag' or 'nagging'. It means to criticise or complain in an annoying way. Now I had a look at the definitions in three dictionaries. Cambridge, Oxford and Collins and in all three it was the female that was doing the nagging. Now in their defence I'm sure they would say that they are just representing how the word is used in real life. So maybe this is a societal problem rather than an English language problem but it is interesting to see these patterns. Because this is true of other words with negative connotations as well. Ok, let's take the words spinster and bachelor. They both mean someone that is unmarried. A spinster is a female that's unmarried and a bachelor is a male that's unmarried. Now the word bachelor, if you put it into the dictionary, an immediate collocation you'll find it 'eligible bachelor' someone that's available, that is attractive. There are top hundred lists of the most eligible bachelors. It's a desirable person. Do the same thing with spinster and you get a much more negative connotation. You could be a forty year old man and a forty year old female unmarried, one is a bachelor, one is a spinster. One has positive connotation, one has a negative connotation. So is this language being influenced by society or society being influenced by language? Now I may be wrong with the connotations there but I have yet to see a hundred eligible spinsters in Vogue magazine. That's all I'm saying, I've seen eligible bachelors I haven't seen eligible spinsters yet. You also only have to look at the rudest words in English which I'm not going to say on Eat Sleep Dream English. But the rudest words you can think of in English are slang words for female body parts. It's not male body parts, it's female body parts. What does that tell you about how society sees the different genders? Now it's not all doom and gloom, don't get me wrong. There have been lots of changes to the English language because English is a fluid ever changing and evolving thing and a lot of these words have changed in my life. When I was growing up there were a lot of words we used that we don't use now. I think something really important for you guys to know now is that we often use gender neutral words. In the past we'd use gender phrases. So for example 'air hostess'. We now don't use the term air hostess, we prefer to use flight attendant. And a flight attendant could be a male or a female. Take male nurse, male nurse suggests that it's a man that's a nurse but in actual fact nurse can be male or female so that's the term we use now. We just say nurse and that could be male or female. When I was at school it was the headmaster and a headmistress that is now gone. We just say head teacher. So it could be male or female. Same with chairman, it's now chairperson. Policeman, we don't say policeman anymore, we say police officer. Again that's taking the gender out of the word, so it could be male or female. Police officer. Fireman is now fire fighter. We used to say mankind, talking about all humans now we'd say human kind. Perhaps the biggest difference from when I was growing up was actress, that's now much more rarely used and the preferred term is actor So whether it's male or female you are much more likely now to hear the word an actor rather than actress. So actor could be male or female. Now you'll notice there the -ess suffix on the end of those words, that shows you that it's a female word. Some still exist so for example princess, we still use that word. Alright another example was instead of barman, it's bar tender or bar staff. I remember growing up we had weather girls, that seems so old fashioned now. So it would be a weather presenter. Now sometimes we are not sure about the gender of somebody and we don't want to say he or she. 'Did you go to the doctor, what did (mmm) say?' Now mmm what's there? Now I don't know if the doctor is male or female. So I can't say 'what did he say?' because it might not be a man. I can't say 'what did she say?' because I don't know if she's a woman so what can I say? Well, options are you could say 'what did he or she say?' Or you could use the neutral 'what did they say?' Now I know it sounds like it's more than one person but we actually use it in a singular way to talk about a gender neutral person. So 'what did they say?' He or she, we don't know. Another example, 'How's your new housemate. What's he or she like?' 'How's your new flatmate, what are they like?' So we are using they, sounds like a plural but actually we are talking about a singular thing. So what are they like? So Eat Sleep Dreamers it's really important for you guys to update your English. Make sure you are using the words that are now much more common and accepted in English. I know this is a very cultural thing but it's something you need to be aware of when you are learning English and particularly British English. Alright guys I hope you enjoyed that one, I think it's a really interesting topic and it's one for a lot of discussion. Obviously it's a very sensitive topic and one that we must treat very carefully. So I hope it's got you thinking about what kind of vocabulary you use in your English and the choices you make to express your ideas. Let me know in the comments below what you think and of course give me a big thumbs up if you have enjoyed it, if you found it useful in any way. Remember I've got new videos every Tuesday and every Friday helping you take your English to the next level. Check me out on Instagram, check me out on Instagram stories where I post daily updates for your English and of course on Facebook as well. But until next time guys, this is Tom the Chief Dreamer, saying goodbye.