Seminar

[snopes]

Comment: I have a conservative friend who tells me that "the feminists"
want to replace the word "seminar" with "ovular"; because seminar, with
its "semen" roots, is sexist.

After googling for a few minutes I've found several references to this,
but always by conservatives lamenting the issue rather than any actual
example of somebody proposing this usage change.

Is this an actual feminist cause?

[Dropbear]

THIS IS THE VOICE OF THE FEMINISTS. WE KNOW THAT YOU CAN HEAR US EARTHMEN. OUR RETALIATION WILL BE SLOW, BUT NONETHELESS EFFECTIVE. IT WILL MEAN THE ULTIMATE DESTRUCTION OF THE WORD 'SEMINAR'.

Damn, them... will they stop at nothing?

Dropbear

[diddy]

Dictionary.com would disagree...

[Chloe]

How does it disagree? It gives the etymology as "German, from Latin sēminārium, seed plot; see seminary."

[Amigone201]

Apparently the ultra right has run out of real issues to get pissed off about. They've now moved on to making things up and getting pissed off about that.

It's amazing what things you can get angry over if you really need to get angry about something.

[Sara@home]

If by "the feminists" your friend means three feminist from 1979, yeah, it's true, according to this..

In 1979, I heard that she and several comrades (including Ruth Mountaingrove, Jean Mountaingrove, and Carol Newhouse) were organizing the first of a series of summer photography workshops for women. They coined the term “Ovular” (in contrast to Seminar) to describe the enterprise.

FWIW, the article is about a lesbian feminst activist.

Can't say it caught on with any run of the mill feminists I ever met because, though I've heard the old "herstory" used (though never seriously, IIRC) I have never heard of "ovular" for "seminar".

[Chloe]

I've heard that story too. I never read it to imply that anyone was in favor of banning the word "seminar," but rather as part of a mission to make people aware of subtle implications in language (and sometimes feminists make jokes).

Originally Posted by diddy

Dictionary.com would disagree...

Run by men, of course.