The 24 Words That Are Most Known To Only Men Or Women
Mark Brysbaert of the Center for Reading Research conducted a study of the English words most commonly understood specifically be either men or women.
Here is my attempt to use the 12 most common words most understood by men rather than women:
The paladin checked his encryption codecs and the firing solenoids for his dreadnought's mach 2.5 shells as he watched his biped golems pack their kevlar-armored humvees with claymores and hone their scimitars before they set out to fight bolshevism.
So, all tech or military terms.
And here are the words that women recognize, but men generally don't:
(The numbers represent the percentages of men and women who understand them.)
- taffeta (48, 87)
- tresses (61, 93)
- bottlebrush (58, 89)
- flouncy (55, 86)
- mascarpone (60, 90)
- decoupage (56, 86)
- progesterone (63, 92)
- wisteria (61, 89)
- taupe (66, 93)
- flouncing (67, 94)
- peony (70, 96)
- bodice (71, 96)
I appear to be bi-vocabularish. I wonder if there's a Facebook gender assignment for that....
My whole takeaway from that is, "Taffetta, darling."
I know all of the words on the women's list, and most of the ones on the men's list. And the ones on the men's list where I don't know the actual definition, I do know the vague category, like "it's some kind of weapon." (Except solenoid. Had to look that one up.)
Of the women's terms I didn't know bottlebrush, mascarpone and wisteria.
I know all the men's terms except I was a unsure what a paladin was (but I knew it was some kind of soldier).
I know what a solenoid is -- it's the smallest particle of sole, silly.
I know all of those. It's a bit disappointing to see some of the words on the men's list. They're not all things I would expect to be gendered.
Yeah, I was surprised that Bolshevism was on the list.
I'm surprised that grosgrain isn't on the women's list as I have heard that is a gendered word previously.
Blessed Solstice, y'all. May your summer be mild, fun and vaguely coconut scented.
I knew all the words on both lists but have to say that several of the 'boy' words are known to me specifically because I read science fiction...and used to be married to a vet/cop. "Grosgrain" is a good one, Kat! If I did not learn to sew from a woman born in the 20s, I'd never know that one.
The cat pee smell is a huge issue in the pet care business. I am firmly convinced that many cat people's homes smell much more than their acclimated olfactory acuity lets them know on a regular basis. Then, they go out of town for x number of days and then come home to accuse us of not maintaining their boxes properly. Our policy is to carry out everything we scoop every time. My sense is that the scent lingers, long past the scoop by date.
