Herstory or History? Is this a false neologism?

Personally, I think it’s a political reason.

Yes to both.

Yes it ignores etymology, but it’s also valid.

Ancient Greece looks way different from the perspective of the 16 year old girl married to the wealthy 40 year old man who’s never home and who would rather sleep with an 8 year old boy in a public bath house.

Wives in ancient Greece had some crazy erotic toys.

It’s a clever twist on a linguistic coincidence without regard to the etymology. It is used to make the point that history has usually been told from a traditionally male bias. The usage has been around since the 1970s but I don’t think it has really entered the language.

I prefer “personstory.” Just kidding. Silliness, methinks. Regardless of the etymology, I know of no one, man or woman, who thinks of “history” as the male take on what happened. Even though it most certainly is . . . .

Another example of the growing bastardisation of the english language, silly buggers.

Perhaps there are people who are offended by the presence of “his” in “history,” but that is not the reason why someone came up with “herstory.” The latter is just a play on words. It takes advantage of the coincidence that “history” begins with “his” (and can be read as “his story”) to form the basis of an alternative term for an alternate take on history. Because even if the word itself has nothing to do with being “his story,” the fact of the matter is that the majority of historians through history have been men and the majority of history has been written from that perspective. So there’s really no false assumption going on.

As for whether the word is suitable for discourse, surely that depends on the discourse? None of the words we are using now were suitable once upon a time. Whether or not a word is suitable depends on whether it is apt and whether it is understandable (or can be made understandable as part of the conversation). Your question, though, is loaded with false dilemmas. Whether the word is suitable for discourse has nothing to do with whether or not it was invented for a political purpose. “Abolitionist” was created for a political purpose, but there’s nothing illegitimate about it. And again, no one ignored the etymology. The etymology was simply irrelevant to the word play.

I won’t have anything to do with it. I don’t think it’s playful at all; it’s angry. The main problem with the angry attempts at language revisions of the past fifty years is that they haven’t given us palatable alternatives. That’s aside from being nonsensical, which some of them are.

The word is “history,” and it isn’t based on a personal pronoun.

What next, hersterectomy?

@Jeruba Again, the alteration has nothing to do with an assumption that “history” is based on a personal pronoun. Therefore, that is not a good reason to reject it. And what exactly are your grounds for insisting that the term is “angry”? Can you show that it is only used angrily, or that it originated in anger?

@Seek_Kolinahr Toy reference source?

Next, what is an antiherstimine.

That is hersterical, Dutchess III!

@rojo, for example;

Dildo-like breadsticks, known as olisbokollikes (sing. olisbokollix) were known in Ancient Greece prior to the 5th century BC.

Ridiculousness to me. Leave the word alone.

Not to be a killjoy, but “hysterectomy,” “hysteria,” and “hysterical” all start with “hys,“not “his,” and the “hys” part comes from the Greek word for “womb.” So, no real problem there except that the Greeks (and others) thought mental illness was caused by problems with the uterus instead of the brain. On the plus side, the treatment was loads and loads of orgasms. Probably calmed down even the craziest of people a little bit!

@SavoirFaire, I’m aware of that. The knowledge of some doesn’t stop a lot of other people from making false assumptions. Remember reading about a teacher’s being fired for using the word “niggardly”? Etymology was no defense.

My grounds for speaking of an angry basis are exactly that I watched those movements unfold and saw how they affected people. 1963 was a landmark year in a lot of ways that are being recognized this year with half-century observances. I was in high school at the time, and I was paying attention. I started college the following year, right in the thick of what was actively becoming The Sixties.

One of the events of which I haven’t seen much notice this year was the 1963 publication of The Feminine Mystique, which rocked the foundations of our society as much as or more than the civil rights movement. It wasn’t the only impetus to the feminist revolution, not by a long shot, but it lit the fuse.

In the tide of feminist outrage that followed, during which “liberation” for many seemed to entail furiously denouncing everything that carried even the faintest aroma of testosterone, some women ransacked the language looking for evidence of any overt, covert, or even just aurally suggestive male bias. “History” was one of those targets. Words like “chairman” and even “human” became the subjects of diatribes. Pronouns in academic and popular nonfiction have still not recovered from the trauma.

I distance myself from the extremists now just as I did then because I didn’t and don’t think that only one minority or any one group needs liberation. I think they all—we all—do: liberation from false generalizations and stereotypes and prejudgments and irrational thinking and also from endless recriminations for the actions of long-dead ancestors whose attitudes are not our own and not condoned by us. Every group that’s gone after its rights since then has wanted to take them out of the hide of middle-class white males. That imbalance bothers me just as much as the wrongs that were being righted. Taking responsibility for one’s own errors and misdeeds is quite enough without shouldering those of misguided predecessors.

So although I am in sympathy with all those who battle genuine oppression of any kind, I have no patience with those who go looking for opportunities to take offense so they can press some unmerited advantage. Real liberation is not just a reassignment of victimhood.

^^Check out the unintended humor in the post about “olisbokollikes” and ridiculousness”

@Uberwench No, you don’t say?
Herstrionics…much.

@Jeruba There have been several cases of people objecting to teachers (and others involving people who weren’t teachers) using the word “niggardly.” And in each of them, etymology was a complete defense. Most did not lose their jobs. Those who did got them back. Some sued for defamation after being called racist. The only case I know of in which someone was fired and stayed fired is one in which the person used “niggardly” incorrectly. That is, they were trying to use a slur and accidentally used the wrong word.

As for your anti-feminist screed, it doesn’t really answer my question. The very first sentence of my very first post here noted that some people may have been offended by the presence of “his” in “history.” My question was if you could show that it originated in anger or is always used angrily. You have not done so. All you have done is note that the word is of feminist origin and appealed to the “angry feminist” trope. Since you say you paid attention to the movement as it unfolded, however, I’m sure you already know that your characterization of liberation ideology is mistaken and misleading (since anyone who was actually paying attention would have noticed that leading feminist theorists both then and now have never taken feminism to be solely about women).

I take it, then, that you have no actual answer to my question.

@ucme Hey, I was just trying to help everyone understand the herstory of the word! ;)

I think it’s just a pun to catch attention.

@Uberwench You changed your answer you cheeky bugger tsk tsk :)

The word calls attention to the mostly male perspective of the historical records. To the extent that it encourages a broader view of history, it is most worthwhile. I do not see herstory becoming a permanent part of the language.

I’m surprised at the acrimonious tone of your response, @SavoirFaire. I hope you didn’t think I was attacking you. I attempted (however poorly) to answer your question honestly and reasonably from my own point of view, and that’s all.

Your pejorative language and imputations of dishonesty are duly noted.

In any case, I wasn’t speaking of feminist theorists and ex post facto interpretations but of how ordinary people behaved at the time—not all people, some people. I read and heard angry rhetoric in various media and among my own acquaintances and family. The fact that leaders and theorists might have had higher intentions doesn’t change the fact that strong feelings were aroused and that some of them were misdirected and destructive.

And the fact that some people behaved in angry, misdirected, and destructive ways does not invalidate the justice of their cause.