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- Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!comlab.ox.ac.uk!oxuniv!wilcox
- From: wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk
- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
- Subject: Re: chaps
- Message-ID: <1992Dec23.125948.10966@vax.oxford.ac.uk>
- Date: 23 Dec 92 12:59:48 GMT
- References: <baron.92.724957187@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
- Organization: Oxford University VAX 6620
- Lines: 15
-
- In article <baron.92.724957187@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, baron@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Dennis Baron) writes:
- > Can anyone tell me whether the gender neutral use of chaps in the UK
- > or elsewhere has met any resistance?
-
- I suspect it is a lot less widespread than people have been making out.
- Speaking as a Public-School-and-Oxbridge educated man it conjures up thoughts
- of terribly clubby Public-School-and-Oxbridge educated men with jobs in Daddy's
- company and blonde bombshell girlfriends with brains almost as small as their
- inamorati's guzzling champagne in fashionable wine bars. (Cultural
- stereotyping? Surely not!) I certainly don't hear it used non-gender-
- specifically, and I hear it used to men very rarely.
- --
-
- Stephen Wilcox | For Sale: Posts in British Government. Suit
- wilcox@vax.oxford.ac.uk | outgoing American. Highest bids accepted.
-