dragonfrog

A usage question - do you consider the term "fellows" to be inherently gendered?

i.e. would you read the sentence "some fellows were playing volleyball at the park this morning" to imply men were playing, or people the speaker considers fellow citizens / fellow volleyball fans / etc.?

#language #gender

fellows have something in common with the speaker
fellows are men
a third thing I will expound in comments
I dunno, show me the results
Poll ends at .
7:05pmWeb
Show threadUrbanEdm8h ago
@dragonfrog In this specific example sentence, "fellows" are men. But "fellow" in the context of a research fellowship is not.
Show threaddragonfrog7h ago
@UrbanEdm oh like "FRS" for Fellow of the Royal Society and such? Or I guess NAFO.
Show threadEllenIn Edmonton6h ago
@dragonfrog @UrbanEdm
There are SO many terms in common usage which are inherently gendered. Fellow, mankind, master, Bachelor's degree, dudes, guys, and so on.
I've been female my entire life, and I'm quite fed up with being misgendered.
Show threaddragonfrog6h ago
@EllenInEdmonton @UrbanEdm i mean, "fellow" seems to me whatever the opposite of inherently gendered ("extraneously gendered?") - in contrast to the other examples you mention like "mankind", its etymology as I understand it just suggests "along with" and yet it seems to have picked up gender implication when used as a noun in at least a lot of situations.
Show threadEllenIn Edmonton6h ago
@dragonfrog @UrbanEdm
Hmm, that's news to me, but the English language has so many different journeys that individual words take, so it isn't surprising. I've always seen it as a gendered word, so I've tried to use community instead of fellowship, for example.
Show threaddragonfrog5h ago

@EllenInEdmonton @UrbanEdm you're clearly not the only one per the poll. That's why I was curious how others used / understood it.

I'd understand the (maybe old fashioned) phrase "I enquired among my fellows" to mean my peers of any gender, but "those fellows in the park" to mean men.

And "good morning fellows" absent context, I don't know - maybe it would depend what century the text is from?

Show threadAmelia Bellamy-Royds 7h ago

@dragonfrog It annoys me that "fellows" is gendered when it shouldn't be, but yes, it is very much a synonym for "guys" in my lexicon. Except that guys can be sometimes be derogatory/dismissive ("some guys"), while fellows & especially fellas (which I'd be more likely to say) is usually friendly.

But yeah, it is weird because "fellow" as an adjective is not gendered at all. So the noun should be neutral. But it got adopted into English at a time when the fellows (🤨) using it didn't consider women to be their fellow in social or professional pursuits, so... 😑

And oops, now we've hit semantic satiation. fell-ow fe-llow f'low... 😵‍💫