# Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words - Hardcover

by **Jenni Nuttall** (Author)

**"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_

An enlightening linguistic journey through a thousand years of feminist language--and what we can learn from the vivid vocabulary that English once had for women's bodies, experiences, and sexuality

So many of the words that we use to chronicle women's lives feel awkward or alien. Medical terms are scrupulously accurate but antiseptic. Slang and obscenities have shock value, yet they perpetuate taboos. Where are the plain, honest words for women's daily lives?

_Mother Tongue_ is a historical investigation of feminist language and thought, from the dawn of Old English to the present day. Dr. Jenni Nuttall guides readers through the evolution of words that we have used to describe female bodies, menstruation, women's sexuality, the consequences of male violence, childbirth, women's paid and unpaid work, and gender. Along the way, she challenges our modern language's ability to insightfully articulate women's shared experiences by examining the long-forgotten words once used in English for female sexual and reproductive organs. Nuttall also tells the story of words like _womb_ and _breast_, whose meanings have changed over time, as well as how anatomical words such as _hysteria_ and _hysterical_ came to have such loaded legacies.

Inspired by today's heated debates about words like _womxn_ and _menstruators_\--and by more personal conversations with her teenage daughter--Nuttall describes the profound transformations of the English language. In the process, she unearths some surprisingly progressive thinking that challenges our assumptions about the past--and, in some cases, puts our twenty-first-century society to shame. _Mother Tongue_ is a rich, provocative book for anyone who loves language--and for feminists who want to look to the past in order to move forward.

### Author Biography

**Dr. Jenni Nuttall** is an academic who has been teaching and researching medieval literature at the University of Oxford for the last twenty years, and who has thus had a lot of practice at making old words interesting. She has a DPhil from Oxford and completed the University of East Anglia's MA in creative writing. _Mother Tongue_ is her first book for the general reader.

**Number of Pages:** 304

**Dimensions:** 1.15 x 8.54 x 5.86 IN

**Publication Date:** August 29, 2023

## Details

- **Price:** 30.0 USD
- **Vendor:** Books by splitShops
- **Type:** Books
- **Tags:** Books by splitShops, Shopify Collective

## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 30.00 USD | In stock |

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- Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words - Hardcover

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