Virago

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Dr. Goodword
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Virago

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue May 26, 2009 11:42 pm

• virago •

Pronunciation: vê-rah-go • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: We rarely encounter words whose meanings vary according to the gender of the speaker, but today's Good Word is one. To some women, this word means "a strong, heroic, courageous woman; a female warrior." Men, on the other hand, tend to consider viragos female bullies, vociferous scolds or shrews, or just domineering women. The difference is mainly one of the speaker's attitude toward strong women.

Notes: We still haven't decided how to spell the plural of this word, so both viragos and viragoes are acceptable. Keep in mind that this word has not lost its Latin pronunciation of the middle A as [ah].

In Play: Unfortunately, women still have to be 'pushy' to go where men go: "Margie wouldn’t be the president of this company today if she weren’t a very smart virago." The fact remains that some males continue to hold a negative view of women who exhibit the same characteristics applauded in men: "That virago who recently took over the president's office won't listen to a thing I tell her."

Word History: Virago is the translation of the Hebrew word for "woman" in Genesis 2:23 of the Latin Vulgate Bible, a fifth century translation. The King James version of the same passage reads: "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Early English translations simply lifted the Latin word. The Latin word comprises vir "man" + an odd suffix. It was probably used because the Hebrew word for "man", unlike the Latin, sounds like the word for "woman". The original Proto-Indo-European word which led to vir in Latin became Old English wer "man", visible today only in the word for the man-wolf, werewolf. (We are happy that Maureen Koplow is enough of a virago to bring the subtleties of this Good Word to our attention.)
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skinem
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Postby skinem » Sat May 30, 2009 11:16 pm

Interesting...thank you!

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A little place I go to sometimes in Nashvegas...

And I used to own one of the these, a Yamaha Virago, the first v-twin manufactured by a Japanese murdercycle company...I always figured it was a made-up model name...

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Postby Perry » Sat Jun 06, 2009 10:53 am

There are mainly two words for man in Hebrew. In this case the word is "eesh" (and the feminine is "eesha") (איש, אשה). But the name Adam, also means man. The same root is used in the word for earth, which is "adama" (אדם, אדמה).
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Slava
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Postby Slava » Sat Jun 06, 2009 12:50 pm

a Yamaha Virago, the first v-twin manufactured by a Japanese murdercycle company...I always figured it was a made-up model name.
I wonder if perhaps "virago" is a sound that means something else in Japanese. Anyone out there know the language?
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:19 am

... The same root is used in the word for earth, which is "adama" (אדם, אדמה).
"By your leave" [says Stargzer in a low, gravelly, robotic voice], "that's a reference I never saw until now; the same goes for the number of Colonies."
... Adama is the commander of the great military vessel Battlestar Galactica, commander of the refugee fleet and military commander of the evacuees of the Twelve Colonies.
He was searching for the planet he was named after!
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Jun 08, 2009 12:59 am

... I wonder if perhaps "virago" is a sound that means something else in Japanese. Anyone out there know the language?
I wouldn't be surprised. "Subaru" is the Japanese name for the asterism Westerners know as "The Pleiades" or "The Seven Sisters" and I think that "Tercel" means "Hawk."

Oops. Wrong again, Buzzard Breath:
... The name "Tercel" derives from the Latin word for "one third" as the Tercel was slightly smaller than the Corolla — much the way "tiercel" refers to a male falcon, which is one-third smaller than its female counterpart.
... The traditional term for a male falcon is tercel (British spelling) or tiercel (American spelling), from Latin tertius = third because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a male falcon is approximately one third smaller than the female (Old French tiercelet).
Hmmm ... so the Japanese stole that model name from Ford! [Stargzer has fond memories of a 6-cylinder 1964 Ford Falcon station wagon ...]

But Stargzer does know his Astronomy:
Fuji Heavy Industries, the parent company of Subaru, is currently in a partnership with Toyota Motor Corporation, which owns 16.5% of FHI. The company is named after the star cluster Pleiades, which in Greek mythology is known as the Seven Sisters, and in Japanese mythology the name is "Subaru", which roughly translated into English means, "to govern", "unite," or "gather together". The company logo is influenced by the star cluster. The large star in the logo represents Fuji Heavy Industries, and the five smaller stars represent the current five companies that are united under the FHI group.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
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Re: Virago

Postby George Kovac » Sat Jul 24, 2021 8:36 pm

Yes, this is a word to reclaim, in both its positive and negative contexts.

Words with multiple meanings and shadings are valuable—humans are complex and contradictory and our usable vocabulary should acknowledge nuance. I think the world is ready for leadership by viragos (mostly in the positive sense, but hey, we often say great men are not necessarily good men.) God knows we have had our share of the male equivalent of viragos, with mixed results.

Here is a description of Fulvia, wife of Mark Antony, by Alberto Angela, in his highly entertaining recently translated book “Cleopatra: the queen who challenged Rome and conquered eternity”:
“It’s above all her mind and personality that would conquer men. … Fulvia was the only woman to have carried a sword and recruited an entire army. … We’re not dwelling on Fulvia’s personality by chance. The fact that she is a strong woman, a virago, is very important in our story about Cleopatra.”

(@page 98, translation by Katherine Gregor.).

I also commend Stacy Schiff’s recent biography “Cleopatra: A Life,” which is also a revisionist history of this complex ambitious and accomplished, but much maligned, woman. That is the fate of the virago. It did not help Cleopatra’s case among her detractors that she was the wealthiest person in the ancient world. (Fun fact, she was the second wealthiest person until she murdered her weak brother—he was the wealthiest person—and added his stash to hers.)

The historical record on Cleopatra the person is astonishingly thin. Almost all we know of her comes from Roman sources, unobjective writers after the fact who had every motivation to characterize Cleopatra as an evil virago who had been an existential threat to Rome. It is as if, 2000 years from now, the only information we have about Hillary Clinton came from Fox News. I am not making a contemporary political point, but a historical and analytical one: he who writes history must be taken into account when testing the accuracy of his history. Regardless of the writer’s contemporary biases, powerful women historical figures bear the added burden of characterization as viragos by the men who write about them. Few women (Elizabeth I being the notable exception) get a fair and balanced treatment by historians. The term virago, as a pejorative, is applied only to women.
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David Myer
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Re: Virago

Postby David Myer » Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:04 am

Interesting George. Perhaps as well as Elizabeth the First, we could add Joan of Arc and possibly also Boadicea, warriors both. And it is surely "he" who has written history, not "she".

I do like the good Doctor's view that whether Virago is a pejorative term depends on your perspective, largely whether you are male or female. I read the other day a note entitled How to tell a Male Administrator from a Female Administrator. It included these gems:

A male administrator is firm. A female is inflexible.
He is good on details. She is picky
He follows through. She doesn't know when to quit
He is human. She is emotional

and lots more.

I must say, the older I get, the more sympathy I have for women. Success or achievement in almost any field is trebly hard.

George Kovac
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Re: Virago

Postby George Kovac » Sun Jul 25, 2021 9:31 am

David,

I was entertained by your enlightening list of adjectives used to describe the same traits in male vs female administrators.

I think I have found a solution to my observation that there is no noun to describe the male equivalent of a “virago.” Why don’t we just call them “viagros”?
"Every battle of ideas is fought on the terrain of language." Zia Haider Rahman, New York Times 4/8/2016

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Re: Virago

Postby Dr. Goodword » Sun Jul 25, 2021 2:15 pm

:D
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David Myer
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Re: Virago

Postby David Myer » Sun Jul 25, 2021 7:12 pm

Viagro. Yes, I like it - although probably not him. And come to think of it, Viagro is a more macho word than Viagra. I wonder why the marketing people chose to feminise it?


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