This may not be to the liking of purists, but gender-neutrality is catching on around the world. So, Mx, the short form of Mixter for those who do not want to use such honorifics as Mr, Mrs or Ms, could soon find its way to the Oxford English Dictionary. With transgenders coming out unabashedly and asking for their rights across the world and the social media showing contempt for everything orthodox, language being no exception, the current decade may prove to be a watershed bringing into use a whole lot of words and expressions steering clear of gender identification. It was the 1970s, otherwise a dull decade compared to the swinging 60s, that made a whole lot of feminisms becoming a source of new vocabulary. Chairperson, spokesperson (rather than chairman, spokesman), fire-fighter (rather than fireman), libber (an advocate of women’s liberation), her indoors (one’s wife or girlfriend; also applied generally to any woman in position of power) and even something like herstory were some of the entrants to the anti-sexist jargon, indicating that the feminist campaign of the previous decade was bearing fruit. The last of these first appeared around the beginning of the decade and referred to history emphasizing the role of women or told from a woman’s point of view, implying that history in the past has been viewed mainly from a male perspective. It did not prove to be a long lasting coinage, but did survive the last century. Social perceptions vis-à-vis gender stereotypes too seem to be in for a change. Sweden, which has been deemed by the World Economic Forum as the most gender-equal society, last week saw the opening of a new emergency department in a hospital specifically for male survivors of sexual assault. A rage on social media since then, it offers counselling, legal service besides medical treatment. The dictionary of the Swedish language has also added a new pronoun, hen, to express gender neutrality. And the yummy mummy has a challenge from the dad bod. Brought to light initially by a Clemson University sophomore who recently wrote about it for a site called The Odyssey, it is getting into the mainstream expression to describe a male physique which has got a soft pudge on an otherwise athletic body. It is the latest term to describe an attractive male in his midlife. It is this youthful vigour of English, allowing its lexicon to be the mirror of changing times, that makes it a truly world language.
