I recently sent off some writing to be proofread and one comment (of a few... Perfect, I ain't ) was that I had used both "blond" and "blonde" to describe a person's hair. Obviously, for the sake of consistency if nothing else, it should be the same throughout one piece of writing. The spell-checker let both spellings go by unquestioned and various dictionaries seem to imply there's no difference at all.

So, what say ye? I've decided to go with "blonde" when speaking about hair and "blond" when referring to, say, pine furniture though this distinction is based on little more than an occasional furniture ad in the Sunday papers. Any other more reputable (accent on first syllable, thank you, not the second) source would be helpful especially when I finally get around to the R's in rewriting the OED.

I thought I had this down pat from an earlier post by Arnie. Men are "blond" and women are "blonde", right?

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
I thought I had this down pat from an earlier post by arnie. Men are "blond" and women are "blonde", right?

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Well sort of.

If we were speaking French this would be absolutely correct but normally when we import a word from another language we don't bother with importing the associated grammar.

In English there are none of the pesky adjective agreements that are necessary in French or German and specifically our nouns do not have a grammatical gender so there is absolutely no need whatsoever to inflect the adjective.

The dictionary simply gives both spellings with equal weight.
CJ is right, it doesn't matter which you choose but for the sake of good style you ought to be consistent about it.

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I don't disagree with the above, but a blonde (or a brunette) is usually only ever a lady. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was only ever referring to heterosexuals.

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In English there are none of the pesky adjective agreements that are necessary in French or German and specifically our nouns do not have a grammatical gender so there is absolutely no need whatsoever to inflect the adjective.

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Agreed, but if we do inflect it, as in the blond/blonde example, inflect it right! In other words, use "blond" for male hair, "blonde" for that of a female.

I know it is sometimes hard to know if the person really is blonde, but I thought it interesting that the dictionary says that blonde-haired people often have blue or gray eyes. I suppose that definition hinges on the word "usually", as Tsuwm reminded me in the "eristic" thread regarding the dictionary definition of "often." Yet, one dictionary definition actually said, "A person of very fair complexion, with light hair and light blue eyes."

Now, I think the most beautiful women have blonde hair and brown eyes or dark hair and blue eyes.

Thanks to all.

Now that you mention it, I do recall seeing "blond" describing male hair though I agree with B.H. about the beauty of English (one of many) being that we can adopt a foreign word separate from all the non-essential complications that may try to tag along with it.

(A sidenote: The term "male hair" itself seems odd since hair is genderless both linguistically and actually. "Male hair" suggests a picture of someone whose every strand of hair ends in a little penis, some sort of bizarre reverse Medusa.)

In future, I think I will make use of this blond/blonde male/female distinction, in the very rare times it comes up, if only for the remote chance someone will call me on it thereby allowing me to share this newly learned little factoid with them and then smile smugly. It's a horrible habit, yes, I know, but I don't do cocaine so I should be allowed my litle vices, right?

I'll also keep "blond" for pine furniture simply because it looks correct, and we all know how important looks are. As the old commercial used to say, "If I have only one life to live, let me live it as a pine!"

In ref to G.N.'s comment, is a brown-haired male a "brunet"? Don't think I've ever seen that. On the other hand, if ever I see an ad for a presentation of "Gentlemen Prefer Blonds" (minus the "e") I'll assume it's either an all-new, all-singing, all-dancing, all-gay review or that it's being put on by individuals not quite as linguistically sharp as we Wordcrafters. (There's that smugness again...) In either case, I'll give it a pass.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:

Now, I think the most beautiful women have blonde hair and brown eyes or dark hair and blue eyes.

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This is possibly because these combinations are rarer. Supermodel Tyra Banks is wildly successful, I would venture to say, in part because she is an African-American woman with green eyes. Very striking.

I once vacationed in Iceland where a huge percentage of people were blond/blonde of the very palest variety. Platinum blond/es everwhere. Occasionally you would see a woman with her hair obviously dyed jet, jet black and, as you can imagine, she definitely attracted more than her share of attention. "Oooh! Black hair! Whatta hotie!!"

[This message was edited by C J Strolin on Fri Dec 5th, 2003 at 14:04.]