(no subject)

Y'know what I decided the other day? 'Lesbian' is not a noun. Or was not, originally. It is an adjective which has come to be used so often in a substantive role that it is now commonly identified as a noun.

-ian is an adjectival ending, like -ic. I've never seen -ic used as a suffix on a substantive adjective, however: instead, we use the noun suffix -ist. German is an ethnic group; 'germanic' is the adjective used for things relating to that group, as in 'germanic languages'; a 'germanist' studies germanic things. At one stage, the adjective 'sapphic' had the corresponding nouns 'sapphist' and 'sapphism'. The adjective 'lesbian', however, can cover for both of these things.

That got me thinking about other -ian words. Consider the difference between 'Australian' and 'English'. Things are 'Australian', and you can meet 'an Australian'. But meet someone who IS English, and they are an Englishman/woman. Englishman(/woman) is a compound formed from both the adjective and the noun; 'Australian' is an adjective which can take a substantive role.

Now, back to lesbian. The OED tells me that the adjective 'lesbian' predates the noun by about thirty years. The duplication happens because English is a handy flexible language which allows us to pick up certain adjectives and use them substantively. After frequent substantive use, they become settled as nouns and the substantive use can outstrip the adjectival.
(Oddly, the word 'lesbianism' occurs in the OED twenty years earlier than the word 'lesbian'. Are isms built on adjectives or nouns? I do not know.)

On the other hand, the word 'Librarian' appears to have gone straight from the latin adj 'librarius' (is that an adjective? i think it is.) 'concerned with books', to noun form. Which makes me sad, not only because it sort of shoots down my substantive adjective theory, but also because I would like to use the word 'librarian' to refer to books and book-collections...

AAAND I am procrastinating wildly about now :D

Why haven't we heard about California Proposals 10 and 7, intarwub?

While hunting down the complete breakdown of results from California, I discovered that while Prop 8 has been passed, two measures relating to clean energy- Prop 10, for alternative fuel cars, and Prop 7, for renewable energy- have been knocked back. WTF, California?

Granted, I can't see from the brief description what *sort* of proposals they were, they might be godawful stupid propsoals, like Morris Iemma's desalination monstrosity. But still.

ETA: see Rymenhild's comment below. Apparently the proposals in question were foolish.

Speaking of Prop 8, how about we appoint the FRENCH Leaders of the Free World? They let you get a Pacte Civil de Solidarite with anyone, regardless of gender or relationship, with whom you live and share a partnership. You can pacser with your sibling or your mother or anyone at all, if you want them to be recognised as your Next of Kin and to benefit from your social security and so forth. No one gives a stuff who you sleep with: my French textbook had a happy profile of a middle-aged fellow who had got a PACS with his elderly mother when they were living together and both suffering from ill-health. The PACS is voided when one party marries, and/or by a statement on the part of the persons concerned.

According to my textbook, at least, the PACS isn't just a token measure, it's publicly recognised as a legitimate partnership; it's apparently popular with secular heterosexual couples; there are lines of 'PACS' cards and department stores have PACS gift registries. The French govt, as well as instituting the legal set-up for a civil union, went out of its way to advertise them as something attractive to everyone, not just gay couples.

Dear Renee Allen

Women do not have homosocial relations. Sorry. They can have homoSEXUAL relations, if they want. And they can have gynosocial relations. But homosocial relations are relations between men. Homo-social. Social between men. As opposed to hom(e)o-sexual, sexual relationships between persons who are 'the same' (for a given definition of same, which in this case is gender).