Publishers Weekly
★ 05/15/2023
Historian Nuttall (The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship) offers an eye-opening survey of the etymology of words used to identify women’s body parts, the kind of work they performed, and the violence they suffered from men in Anglo-Saxon English from the 400s to the 1800s (with brief forays into more recent times). Delving into sources from law, literature, and medicine, Nuttall contends that because men enjoyed higher literacy rates, they often crafted meanings advantageous to patriarchal institutions: the word hysteria, derived from the Greek for womb, became a byword for irrationality; words like occupation, employment, industry, and business that once “described activity itself” became “particularly associated with paid employment,” while terms like housework and homemaking surfaced late in the 1850s to demarcate and devalue women’s labor; and the “ambiguous histories” of words like ravishment and seduction have complicated the definition of rape and women’s attempts to secure legal remedies. Nuttall concludes that though people now have language to denounce the chauvinism of words that began “in the service of sexist theories,” their etymology serves as a sobering reminder of how closely “the world-which-once-was snaps at our heels.” This is required reading for logophiles, feminists, and history buffs. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Mother Tongue
“A fascinating look at how we talk about women. . . . Dense with information and anecdotes, Mother Tongue touches on the hilarious and the devastating, with ample dashes of an ingredient so painfully absent from most discussions of sex and gender: humor.”
―Lisa Selin Davis, The Washington Post
“[Nuttall] examines the origins of words used over many centuries to describe women’s bodies, desires, pregnancies, work lives, sexual victimhood, and stages of life. . . . Her research is comprehensive enough that even longtime word enthusiasts will find plenty of new trivia.”
―The New Yorker
“Edifying and enlivening, Mother Tongue excavates the history of various words, from those relating to menstruation to words used to describe violence against women.”
―Rhoda Feng, The Boston Globe
“A fascinating history of the words used to describe women and their bodies and their work from the fifth century to 1800.”
―St. Louis Post Dispatch
“An eye-opening survey of the etymology of words used to identify women’s body parts, the kind of work they performed, and the violence they suffered from men in Anglo-Saxon English from the 400s to the 1800s (with brief forays into more recent times). . . . This is required reading for logophiles, feminists, and history buffs.”
―Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“This easily digestible and scenario-rich depiction of the evolution of language we take for granted is . . . done with care and compelling detail. Nuttall answers why we have been taught to say what we do, but more importantly, reminds us that the language we are handed is contextual, cultural and ultimately changeable.”
―BookPage
“Fascinating, intriguing, witty, a gem of a book.”
―Kate Mosse, author of Warrior Queens & Quiet Revolutionaries
“Nuttall, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature and the history of the English language, brings humor and a merry curiosity to her examination of the ‘lively, unruly and often startlingly vivid’ words used in reference to women and their bodies from Old English to the present. . . . A fresh, informative perspective on women’s lives through the centuries.”
―Kirkus Reviews
“Mother Tongue is scholarly and authoritative, but joyful, never dry, leavened with vivid etymological tidbits and Nuttall’s wry asides—for example, that Genesis’ blaming Eve for the labor of childbearing is ‘such a dick-move.’”
―Booklist
“From the womb-wicket to the child-mighty, and roaring maidens to cunning crones, Mother Tongue encompasses a millennium of enthralling English parlance. Incisively scholarly, affectionately humorous (and sometimes quietly furious), Nuttall sifts the archives of centuries and listens to modern echoes, as lost voices emerge, showing how women have long spoken, and been spoken of. Vivid, philosophical, absorbing and urgent, this superb book teems with historical marvels and their 21st century resonances.”
―Rebecca Wragg Sykes, author of Kindred
“What a revelatory delight of a book. It is richly scholarly, wry and funny, healthily grounded in women’s bodily experiences―they don’t change but attitudes towards them do, and we are clearly very mistaken if we think we are getting it right and previous generations were unenlightened. There is a nugget of joy and wisdom on every single page.”
―Victoria Whitworth, author of Daughter of the Wolf
“Full of interesting observations . . . Entertaining.”
―Philip Hensher, The Spectator (UK)
“One of the wittiest and most insightful books of the year . . . A must-have for any lover of language, history or women.”
―Buzz Magazine (UK)
School Library Journal
03/01/2024
Linguistics may sound boring. But it's far from it—just ask Nuttall, a University of Oxford teacher of the history of the English language and medieval literature. Like an explorer uncovering long-lost treasure, Nuttall trekked back into the first thousand years of the English language to understand how words relating to women have evolved, morphed, and grown (and sometimes disappeared) over time. The phrase lingua materna, which dates to the early 12th century, translates to "mother tongue," and Nuttall's deep dives explore many themes of women's lives—from lust and motherhood, menstruation and puberty, nursing and care, female anatomy, and even the roots of naming male violence. Women's words have long been affected by outdated ideas and back stories—heightened by traces of the sexism and patriarchy of the past. Body-based words such as "hysteria"—once considered a female ailment—morphed into "hysterical," a word often used to justify women's subordination in society. Even some highly taboo words had a place in Chaucer's England, for example. The so-called women's words of the past, alternately seen as quaint, quirky, or just plain incorrect, have impacted the way we speak today. The surprising etymologies will be both fascinating and eye-opening for today's readers. While Nuttall's discourse, at times, veers into the scholarly, the text is strewn with glorious moments of humor and thoughtful asides. VERDICT Those with a love of language and women's studies will devour this book.—Sharon Verbeten
SEPTEMBER 2023 - AudioFile
Narrator Beth Hicks engages listeners with medieval historian Nuttall's fascinating survey of early words that were used for women's bodies and bodily parts, as well as for menstruation, pregnancy, childcare, and traditional occupations for women. Covering the English language from 800 to 1800 CE, Hicks delivers Nuttall's extensive investigation of medical records from physicians and midwives, as well as medical histories from theological sources, dictionaries, and accounts of individuals. Hicks's warm, conversational tone gives a pleasing sheen to archaic words that may be unfamiliar to modern ears. Her consistent inquisitive manner helps listeners stay focused throughout this concisely told comprehensive study. While this audiobook is intended for a general audience, it will have particular appeal to those interested in women's history and the etymology of language. M.J. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2023-05-18
A history of women through words.
Nuttall, a scholar of Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature and the history of the English language, brings humor and a merry curiosity to her examination of the “lively, unruly and often startlingly vivid” words used in reference to women and their bodies from Old English to the present. Delving into sources that include the Bible, midwives’ handbooks, and medical treatises, Nuttall traces how words evolved from a mixture of superstition, speculation, and scientific inquiry, informing and reflecting cultural attitudes about women’s anatomy, menstruation, sexuality, pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, and stages of life as well as male violence and patriarchy. She reveals, for example, that “vagina began life as the Latin word for a sword’s scabbard,” creating an image of a penis as a dagger thrust into the vagina as sheath. Terms related to pregnancy reflect assumptions about whether the uterus served as a “passive carrier or active creator.” Connotations have changed through time: Nuttall notes that the term breeding as a synonym for pregnancy and childbirth, widely used in early English, seems dehumanizing today, and words like conception and pregnant carry double meanings—one referring to thought, another to growing a child. The Industrial Revolution that shaped Victorian society gave rise to many euphemisms about women’s bodily functions, such as menstruation, as well as their function within the family. Terms like housework and home-making, Nuttall shows, gained currency in the mid-19th century, when middle-class women were relegated to the home while their husbands functioned as breadwinners. Although historically few words identified a woman’s stages of life, Nuttall has found sources for maiden, damsel (“the posher kind of unmarried woman”), and, from the 17th century, tomboy. As contemporary feminists claim, words matter: “It’s hard to escape a pattern which is presented to you as your very destiny in life and backed up by words themselves.”
A fresh, informative perspective on women’s lives through the centuries.
