Herstory

I subscribe to Oxford Dictionaries' (OD) word of the day and today's word is 'herstory'.

The OD's definition is 'history viewed from a female or specifically feminist perspective'.

The OED's entry for 'herstory' has yet to be updated (it dates back to 1993) but the entry is fascinating. The entry advises that 'herstory' occurs between 0.01 and 0.10 times per million words in typical modern English usage and that the word's etymology is a punning alteration of 'history' (fancifully reinterpreted as 'his story', implying that history has in the past been viewed predominantly from the male perspective), with his- replaced by her. The OED's earliest recorded use of the word is 1970 by R. Morgan in Sisterhood is Powerful.

My library offers all members access to the OED for free.

Parents Reply Children
  • brilliant. I am feeling nervous for other reasons - and reading this kind of entry kind of relaxes me :-) 

  • OED gives the origin of 'neologism' as "formed within English, by derivation; modelled on a French lexical item."

    The etymology is:
    "neology n. + -ism suffix, after French néologisme (1731 denoting the coining or use of new words or phrases, 1787 denoting a new word or phrase, 1892 in psychiatry). Compare Italian neologismo new word or phrase (1785), German Neologismus (mid 18th cent. in sense ‘new linguistic formation’)."

    The OED's first recorded use is by J.-N. de Sauseuil in An analysis of the French orthography: or The true principles of the French pronunciation, exhibited in several easy schemes and tables:
    "Observations on this Neologism... I thought indeed I was intirely done with this Canon when I came to the explication of the last word Hecaterogenosem."

    Given your interest in words, I would recommend checking if membership of your local library allows access to the OED online. My library requires membership to be active in terms of borrowing books but that is no hardship.

    PS I should really decide whether to use single or double quotation marks!

  • I'm very curious now who coined this word. I can imagine someone with a goose feather in the hand surrounded by leather backed books - who was just as originally brained and word loving as us :-)  

  • Sorry, it seems the signals from my brain do not reach my fingers!

    Yes. I shall edit my earlier post to make my meaning clear.