How often had I overlooked women's contributions ?
How often had I overlooked women's contributions ?
One of the comments reads : Actually, we will probably never figure out, was it man or woman. but I thought this comment of the professor was an interesting eye opener. https://mastodonapp.uk/@MarkHoltom/112070436760917344
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"man" as in human kind.
I agree the linguistics here are unfortunate, but here we are, and that word, in that context, is normally gender neutral.
Also, 28 day calendar probably means it's the moon.It's important to note how we got here. In old English man just meant human. Wereman meant male and wifman meant female. Over time that "were" prefix got dropped and man now means male but the ambiguous meaning of humankind stuck around. In fact "human" comes from old french "of man", again the non-gendered use of the word man.
The point is to fix all these problems we just have to bring back the "were". The progressive werewolves are way ahead of us on this issue.
Hunter, huntress, huntsman. Actor, actress, actsman. Waitor, waitress, waitsman.
If we bring back the were then how are we gonna refer to male hunters, actors, and waitors?
Hunter, werehunter, wifhunter. fun!
the real question is how are we going to refer to male wolves?
It would be interesting to see what in an alternate timeline, English would have looked like today if the Norman invasion never happened.
I'm not seeing a comment pointing out why 28 days isn't a moon thing, so I'll take a shot. If you watch new moon to new moon or full moon to full moon, it's a 29.5 day cycle. It's true, the moon's orbit is only 28 days. However, that's 360° of travel. We don't track the moon against the stars for its cycle though, it's tracked against the sun. A full moon sits opposite the sun, a new moon in line with the sun, etc. So, in that 28 day orbital period, the earth has also orbited about 1/13 of an orbit around the sun, changing the position of the sun against the stars . That means the moon has to travel an extra 28° of orbit to reach the new moon position again - about an extra day an a half.
I’m not seeing a comment pointing out why 28 days isn’t a moon thing,
Hm, that's odd! it's right there
Odd indeed since the link works fine in my mobile app (connect) but doesn't show on the native comment thread. I kinds figured it was something like that with a different source instance. At least I can feel good knowing I explained where 28 does occur
Is there a practical reason to count moon phases? Like its not impossible they were just counting the moon for fun but is it not more likely they were keeping track of the days for practical reasons ie. the period hypothesis?
You mean apart from them occuring at set intervals? The length of time between the average women's periods is 28 days, but the moon's 28 day cycle is 100% reliable, and always happens regardless of individual stressors. Having a regular solar event that confirms you're accurately keeping track of days is pretty practical.