MARVELOUS INVENTION FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH! We invented words about being a woman
By Nneka McGuire for The Lily/The Washington Post – A brand-new vocabulary to describe life in a male-dominated world
Words give our lives meaning, literally. They allow us to distill our thoughts and experiences into a form that others can understand: language. And while the English vocabulary is a veritable feast — consisting of approximately 1 million words, by some estimates — occasionally the perfect term isn’t on offer.
In those cases, creation is necessary. New words are born frequently, and despite their young age, they can feel ubiquitous. (Case in point: mansplain, in which a man arrogantly explains something to a woman. Merriam-Webster says the term’s first known use was only about a decade ago, in 2008.) Illustrations by Olivia Waller CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE
