I heard a speaker recently, discussing the current nursing shortage. Someone in the audience asked an oft-asked question, "What can we do to attract more men into nursing?" Yet, the speaker's answer was quite unusual. He thought for a bit and then said, "I don't think we ever will attract many men into nursing simply because the word 'nurse' is a feminine word." Wow! I have been in nursing for a number of years, and I have never thought, nor heard, of that before. He may be right! It shows the power a word can have.

That may very well be true, Kalleh. I had always thought of "nurse" as a female. I remember a trip to the emergency room about 20 years ago. There was a man helping me with a breathing treatment for my asthma. He told me what to do, and I said, "Ok, you're the doctor." To which he replied, "No, I'm the nurse." That was my first experience with a male nurse, and it really through me for a loop.

I am sure there are other words, such as "mailman", where they have changed the term to "letter carrier", just to draw more women into the field, that previously was thought of to be a male oriented profession.

"To nurse" means to suck at a woman's breast, does it not? Most anyone can carry the postage, but it does take a woman to lactate, so I think the word, "nurse" has a stronger female linkage than does "mailman."

The U.S. Postal Service employee who delivers mail to my rural mailbox is a fifty-year-old woman who drives about 150 miles daily, much of it on primitive roads in all kinds of tropical weather. She does the job as well as any man could do it. I refer to her as my Female Mail Person.

The root of "nurse" is deep into nutrition and nurturing -- "naturally" female-related roles.

BTW, I've heard "doctor" used as an intransitive verb in the Midwest and Southern Rural dialects, as in, "Well, I been doctorin' with old Doc Jones for six months now and he cain't tell what's wrong with me neither."

Prediction ==> For many decades to come, female doctors and male nurses can probably expect to spend their careers explaining that their sex has nothing to do with their profession.

Female lawyers and judges are taken for granted nowadays.

jerry, there are also a lot of women in medicine these days. I believe (though I am not 100% sure) that over 50% of students in U.S. medical schools are women. However, interestingly, women go into the lowest paying and less prestigious specialties, such as family practice, OB, pediatrics, and psychiatry. Men tend to go into neurosurgery, transplant surgeries, thoracic surgeries, and orthopedic surgeries--the highly paid specialties.

I wonder if we will have to change the name of nursing in order to attract more men. Now--that is a real example of the power of a word!

Dictionary.com doesn't list it but I once long ago read that the correct term for a male ballet dancer was "ballerino." Talk about your power of words! How many young girls, when asked what they'd like to be when they grow up, will giggle and shout out "a ballerina!" Not a majority, probably, but a sizable number, I'm sure. But little boys proclaming their desire to be ballerinos?

Ain't gonna happen...

Yet, I have heard of professional basketball players taking ballet lessons to enhance their footwork.

I think it is funny that men avoid the "feminine" professions, but women who go into "masculine" professions (e.g. engineering, policemen, firemen, orthopedic surgeons, etc.) are thought of as courageous. No wonder Hamlet wrote, "frailty, thy name is woman!"

It's always seemed strange to me that ballet dancers are often seen to be effeminate.

Ballet dancing is, of course, a very tough job. How many men do you know who could lift up a woman to above head height and dance with her? Not briefly, or just once, but for lengthy periods and several times an hour.

Richard English

Skipping, or "skipping rope" in the US, is usually seen as a girls' pastime. However, it is also an essential part of a boxer's training.

I remember seeing on some TV programme a while back a challenge between a young woman and a professional boxer as to who could skip the most in a couple of minutes -- the boxer won easily. What also intrigued me was that they imported two judges from some organisation called the European Skipping Union or similar to count the skips.

quote:

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Originally posted by C J Strolin:
Dictionary.com doesn't list it but I once long ago read that the correct term for a male ballet dancer was "ballerino."

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Apparently ballerino is the Italian word for "dancer".

Tinman

Tinman, Is that site listed in our Links for Linguaphiles? It looks like a great one! You have some secret, I think, for finding sites!

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Sun Apr 27th, 2003 at 9:37.]

Reviving a thread

Two more examples of the power of words:

1) At Harvard a group of students is starting a business where cleaning ladies will clean dorm rooms. It is becoming very successful. The name of the business originally was DorMaids. However, Harvard made them change it to DormAids because "maid" could give the impression of "arrogance."

2) The President is very intent on changing our Social Security. He calls it "personalizing" and the Democrats are calling it "privatizing." There is a big difference, apparently. When the public is asked if they favor "privatizing" Social Security, only 34% favor it; when asked if they want it "personalized," 41% favor it.

quote:

When the public is asked if they favor "privatizing" Social Security, only 34% favor it; when asked if they want it "personalized," 41% favor it.

Not surprising, really, since the two terms mean quite different things (although maybe Dubyar doesn't realise that).

To privatise (in the UK at least) means to put into private (as opposed to state) ownership. Thus our railways, for many years run by the state, were sold into private ownership around ten years ago. The service provided might be better, the same, or worse, but that's not the issue. All that has changed is the ownership of the organisation.

To personalise, on the other hand, mean to "make personal". That is, to tune or adjust a product or services so it is better suited to a person's needs. Thus a personalised social security system would be one whose provisions were precisely geared to the personal needs of the recipients.

Most people would like the latter, but probably aren't keen on the former as it seems to be a change for the sake of change.

That is precisely the argument I read, Richard. Are you sure you didn't write it?

"ALL THE RIGHT WORDS"
(A story from the Joplin Globe, Joplin, Missouri


In a flavescent move for the dithyramb, the flibbertigibbet glowed with the rifeness of its ingravescence.

You may be asking yourself, "Were the unwieldy words in the previous sentence used correctly?"

The answer is "No. No, they certainly were not." In most cases, the usage of the words was an affront to the English language. But if using the words correctly in a sentence is difficult, imagine how hard they would be to spell. (the story continues)

quote:

That is precisely the argument I read, Richard. Are you sure you didn't write it?

Only here - alhough I'm happy to be syndicated!