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25 replies on “She’s On Every Committee”

  2. 3, Do you spend a lot of time late at night, sitting cross legged on the floor, in the corner, nervously rocking, and chanting to Dan?

  3. But the good news is that the meetings are short, and there is ALWAYS consensus on the important agenda topics.

  6. Oy vey, I’m going to say something stupid again, I just know it. But I just have to say that I’ve seen that particular use of the possessive singular (woman’s club) many times – too many for it to be a coincidental mistake. I think the point might be to emphasize that the club is the natural or rightful place of every *individual* woman in that town – as in “every (Galesburg)woman’s club,” as opposed to just denoting shared gender of its members.

    Grammar nerd strikes. Apologies, and don’t hesitate to tell me something obvious I’m missing.

  7. 7

    If her ‘moms’ actually were homosexual, if there actually were such a thing as ‘homosexual’; she wouldn’t exist.

  8. Okay, I’m dense. ‘Woman’s Club’ is not an error – searches seem to indicate it’s as prevalent as ‘Women’s Club’.
    Or am I overlooking something else?

  9. @ 9 – Actually, “mom” doesn’t mean what you think it does. What you meant was “biological mother”.

    I’m pretty sure you do know the meaning of the word “moron”, though. If you don’t, just look in the mirror.

  10. @ 10 – Prevalence doesn’t mean grammatical correctness.

    Just look at how ” effect” has thoroughly become confused with “affect” in the last 20 years.

  12. @12: I maintain it is correct.

    A Woman’s Club may be purposely named that way to call out a place where emphasis is on the individual woman, for a marketing slant, or whatever.

  13. @ 14 – I’m not trying to prove you wrong on that. My point was rhetorical, since you seemed to imply that the mere prevalence of this form automatically made it correct… which is not necessarily the case.

  15. @15 Well that depends whether you believe in descriptivist grammar (like almost the entire field of linguistics) or prescriptivist grammar (like almost all WASPs).

  16. @9 yeah because everyone knows that insemination is the most important part of parenting. for example I would never swap my dysfunctional but – thank god! right? – biological&straight parents for a stable adoptive/gay family. now that would be awful.

  17. Phoebe and Lance are correct. One of the hoity-toity-est groups where I live is the “The Cincinnati Woman’s Club”. (christ, check my link–you can’t even get to their website w/o a password!)

    Apparently they are quite emphatic about the interpretation of their spelling. You know, as in “we are the club for The Cincinnati Woman”

  18. @ 17 – As a translator with a Linguistics BA, I try to reconcile both.

    At one point, “prevalence” turns into accepted usage, and by then, you can no longer argue that something isn’t correct. That said, if an otherwise acceptable term is used in a context where it makes not sense, I’ll still consider it incorrect in that particular context.

    WASPness doesn’t have anything to do with it, though, as these notions apply to all languages. I, for instance, may be W, but I sure ain’t AS or P.

    PS: By the way, “ain’t” is an old and thoroughly correct form.

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