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These Words That Women Know Better Than Men And Vice Versa Will Make You Question Your Grasp Of The English Language

These Words That Women Know Better Than Men And Vice Versa Will Make You Question Your Grasp Of The English Language
See how many words you know from each list, and then check your knowledge against my super accurate and definitely not made-up definitions.
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Remember when you had to learn a bunch of new, complicated-sounding vocabulary words in high school for the SATs — stuff like abysmal, demur, postulate? Most of the words you learned then probably feel commonplace now, but there was that moment in time when these words made you feel like the English language was vast and unknowable.

If you want to revisit that feeling, good news: a table of words from a study has been going around on Twitter that contains a list of words that men are typically more familiar with than women, and another list of words that women typically know better than men.

Jurij Fedorov tweeted out the study from the July 2018 edition of the journal Behavior Research Methods, which analyzed 61,858 English words.



Personally, I felt very attacked to scan the list of, uh, "women's words" and find that I knew every single one, and to realize that I only knew a handful of those on the "male" side of the table.



There's something to be said here about how we gender certain language by raising and educating men and women differently, and about the kinds of knowledge that are normalized for different genders, blah blah blah — but that's probably not important or relevant, nor (probably) is the fact that all the words mainly familiar to women have to do with fashion, and the male words are largely scientific terms, words related to war or violence, and one (1) slur.

Anyway, as a proud English major in my undergraduate days, I will not take my own ignorance sitting down. Below, I will offer accurate explanations of the words that women tend to know better, and my best guess at the definitions of the words that men tend to know better. Hope this helps.


Words — For Women!

Peplum: A little skirt attached to the bottom of a shirt for some reason

Tulle: The stuff ballerinas' tutus are made of

Chignon: The way ballerinas stereotypically wear their hair (i.e. a bun)

Bandeau: A fabric band that can serve to hold hair back, as a strapless bra, and probably some other purposes I, a woman, wouldn't know about

Freesia: A flower

Chenille: What a lot of soft throw blankets are made of

Kohl: A dark substance people used to use as makeup in ye olden days

Verbena: A plant whose scent is often found in tea and soaps

Doula: A midwife

Ruche: Fabric pleated or bunched to create a sort of froofy effect

Froofy: A word I just made up

Espadrille: Shoes whose heel is made of braided dried grass for some reason

Damask: A woven fabric whose pattern can today probably only be found on tablecloths

Jacquard: Patterned fabric created by a Jacquard loom (do not ask me what that is)

Whipstitch: It's a sewing thing

Boucle: A kind of "curled" or "looped" yarn that creates a texture I neither will nor can describe

Taffeta: Like silk, but not

Sateen: Like satin, but not

Chambray: A cotton fabric that's usually light-blue in color, though it's unclear why it can't be other colors

Pessary: A device employed to treat pelvic organ prolapse, but also possibly some sort of fabric

Voile: A delicate, semi-transparent fabric — like tulle, but not


Words — For Men!

Howitzer: A kind of musical instrument

Thermistor: A preparation for lobster

Azimuth: Definitely a place

Femtosecond: Time — for women!

Milliamp: One million amps

Aileron: An adjustable flap on the wing of a plane (OK, this one I know)

Servo: A server, in Australia

Degauss: That guy who painted ballerinas a bunch

Boson: A guy with some job on a ship who usually has one or two lines in each of Shakespeare's plays

Checksum: When you're trying to split a bill between a bunch of people after dinner

Piezoelectricity: Electricity, in Italy

Gauss: Like degauss, but not

Katana: A sword for nerds

Shemale: I'm begging men not to use this word

Neodymium: An indie-electro band

Yakuza: "J'accuse!", in Japan

Teraflop: When you're in your flop era for a really long time

Strafe: You can do this in Zelda: Breath of the Wild by holding LZ and going left or right

Parsec: Chopped parsley

Bushido: It's a Samurai thing

Comments

  1. Any computer geek who has studied the history of the field could tell you what a Jacquard loom is. It's an automated loom that could produce patterned fabrics under the control of punched cards. The cards were the inspiration for the punched cards that were used to get programs and data into computers from the 50s through the 80s, and before that in electromechanical tabulating machines that were first used in the 1890 census and continued to be used until they were displaced by computers, starting in the 50s and continuing through the mid-70s.

    Pessary has another definition, a vaginal suppository.

    Teraflop is actually incorrect usage, though it's now common enough that some may consider it correct. FLOPS started as an abbreviation for FLoating point OPerations per Second. (A floating point operation is a single calculation on a number in scientific notation, with a base part and an exponent.) The S at the end is for Second and does not signify a plural, but sometimes people treat it as if it were a plural form because saying something like "one gigaflops" feels wrong.

    As computers became more powerful they progressed through megaFLOPS (millions of operations), gigaflops (billions of operations; by now they were often no longer being capitalized), and teraflops (trillions of operations). Supercomputers got into petaflops (quadrillions of operations) territory a while ago, and you can now build a petaflops system at home with three high end GPUs on a suitable motherboard. (Yes, really; the aggregate performance of the various parts of an RTX 3090 GPU is about 400 gigaflops.) Supercomputers recently started to exceed one exaflops (quintillions of operations).

    I suppose that if Apple, Google, or Microsoft were to suddenly fail for some reason, the result would be a teraflop! Each of those companies has a market cap (the value of all of its shares based on current market price) of over a trillion dollars.

  2. Stevie Ray 2 years ago

    In reference to the list of words supposedly known better by men, several of the definitions provided here are either just wrong or fail to mention other prevalent definitions for the same word. For example, a howitzer is well known to be a type of artillery used for indirect fire.

    And a checksum is a math technique used in computer programming.

    1. Bronwyn 2 years ago

      I'm female, and I actually read the article, so knew to laugh my ass off at the definition of the men's words. I mean, how could one not see this as a hysterical joke?

      Do you need anything mansplained back to you?

    2. Neil Ericson 2 years ago

      you have missed the joke, Almost all of the definitions of words known better by men are wrong, because the author of the article is a woman, hence the joke.

      1. Frank_H 2 years ago

        Joke? It's barely a joke. All it proves is that the writer is more interested in craft and sewing rather than science. I got most of the 'male' words, I'm an engineer and scientist, that's why. I also got more than 75% of the 'female' words, I used to have a partner who was seriously involved in textiles and craft so I learnt something.
        As a taxi driver once said, 'You can prove anything with facts', especially if you use the 'facts' that support your argument.
        In this case all that is being proved is that perhaps more men are involved in science than are in crafts and textiles. Not really a big surprise.
        The writer lack of knowledge is not necessarily funny, it just shows they are not interested.

        1. Mister K. 2 years ago

          It's clearly a joke, and if you read for context instead of rushing to prove how good your grasp if the language is you'd probably have seen the part where she clearly positions it as a joke, plainly stating she was going to make up definitions for the hell of it.

          Engineers and scientists are already stereotyped as being thoroughly "left brained", and I doubt anyone needed your credentials to validate that opinion. Break out if the mold a little, massage both hemispheres gently, and try having a laugh. It won't hurt you to let this one, even if you're u don't find it all that silly.


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