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109-464: Pussy ( / ˈ p ʊ s i / ) is an English noun, adjective, and—in rare instances—verb. It has several meanings, as slang , as euphemism , and as vulgarity . Most commonly, it is used as a noun with the meaning " cat ", " coward ", or " weakling ". In slang, it can mean " vulva or vagina " and less commonly, by synecdoche , " sexual intercourse with a woman". Because of its multiple senses including both innocent and vulgar connotations , pussy

218-546: A mixed language or a creole —a theory called the Middle English creole hypothesis . Although the great influence of these languages on the vocabulary and grammar of Modern English is widely acknowledged, most specialists in language contact do not consider English to be a true mixed language. English is classified as a Germanic language because it shares innovations with other Germanic languages including Dutch , German , and Swedish . These shared innovations show that

327-496: A rapper insults his rivals by including the line, "How can six dicks be pussies?" The line relies on double meanings of both dick (either "contemptible person" or "male genitalia") and pussy ("weak" or "female genitalia"). Such word play presents a challenge for translators of the film. Pussy Riot is a Russian radical feminist punk rock collective that stages illegal events in Moscow protesting President Vladimir Putin and

436-458: A " Basket of deplorables ". Many Trump supporters endorsed the phrase. Donald Trump also played the song " Do You Hear the People Sing? " from the musical Les Misérables as an introduction to one of his rallies, using a graphic captioned "Les Deplorables". Subsequently, Trump called Clinton a " nasty woman " during the final presidential debate, resulting in that expression being described as

545-528: A "rallying cry" for women. It was soon featured on merchandise and used by Clinton's campaign surrogates. One of the older examples of successful reclaiming is the term Jesuit to refer to members of the Society of Jesus . This was originally a derogatory term referring to people who too readily invoked the name of Jesus in their politics, but which members of the Society adopted over time for themselves, so that

654-635: A 2012 official Eurobarometer poll (conducted when the UK was still a member of the EU), 38 percent of the EU respondents outside the countries where English is an official language said they could speak English well enough to have a conversation in that language. The next most commonly mentioned foreign language, French (which is the most widely known foreign language in the UK and Ireland), could be used in conversation by 12 percent of respondents. A working knowledge of English has become

763-437: A cat-like foot", or directly from the noun pussyfoot . This word, first attested in the late nineteenth century, is related to both the "cat" and the "woman" meanings of pussy . In contemporary English, use of the word pussy to refer to women themselves is considered derogatory and demeaning, treating women as sexual objects. As a reference to genitals or to sexual intercourse, the word is considered vulgar slang. Studies find

872-489: A cat. The word puss is attested in English as early as 1533. Earlier etymology is uncertain, but similar words exist in other European languages, including Lithuanian puižė and Irish puisín , both traditional calls to attract a cat. The words puss and derived forms pussy and pusscat were extended to refer to girls or women by the seventeenth century. This sense of pussy was used to refer specifically to genitalia by

981-501: A coward", or "to have sex with a woman". Adjective meanings are likewise related to the noun. The medieval French word pucelle ' maiden, virgin ' is not related to the English word. It is attested in Old French from the ninth century, and likely derives from Latin puella ' girl ' or pulla ' pullet, young female chicken ' . The homograph pussy, pronounced / ˈ p ʌ s i / , means "containing pus ". Pussy

1090-453: A derogatory fashion from the very beginning. In terms of linguistic theory , reappropriation can be seen as a specific case of a type of a semantic change , namely, of amelioration – a process through which a word's meaning becomes more positive over time. Robin Brontsema suggested that there are at least three mutually exclusive goals of reclamation: Value reversal refers to changing

1199-651: A distinct language from Modern English and is virtually impossible for 21st-century unstudied English-speakers to understand. Its grammar was similar to that of modern German: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs had many more inflectional endings and forms , and word order was much freer than in Modern English. Modern English has case forms in pronouns ( he , him , his ) and has a few verb inflections ( speak , speaks , speaking , spoke , spoken ), but Old English had case endings in nouns as well, and verbs had more person and number endings. Its closest relative

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1308-484: A foreign language, make up the "expanding circle". The distinctions between English as a first language, as a second language, and as a foreign language are often debatable and may change in particular countries over time. For example, in the Netherlands and some other countries of Europe, knowledge of English as a second language is nearly universal, with over 80 percent of the population able to use it, and thus English

1417-402: A man who is contented in a relationship. The hyphenated phrase is parsed as "whipped by pussy", a manipulative relationship dynamic wherein a female deliberately or subconsciously withholds sexual intercourse to coerce the male into surrendering power in other aspects of the relationship. The male's weakness is his desire for access to female genitalia, and his willingness to weaken his position in

1526-520: A more standard version of English. They have many more speakers of English who acquire English as they grow up through day-to-day use and listening to broadcasting, especially if they attend schools where English is the medium of instruction. Varieties of English learned by non-native speakers born to English-speaking parents may be influenced, especially in their grammar, by the other languages spoken by those learners. Most of those varieties of English include words little used by native speakers of English in

1635-688: A number of other Anglic languages, including Scots and the extinct Fingallian dialect and Yola language of Ireland. Like Icelandic and Faroese , the development of English in the British Isles isolated it from the continental Germanic languages and influences, and it has since diverged considerably. English is not mutually intelligible with any continental Germanic language, as it differs in vocabulary , syntax , and phonology . However, some of these, such as Dutch or Frisian, do show strong affinities with English, especially with its earlier stages. Unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which were isolated,

1744-548: A personal process, it has been discussed in the context of empowerment that comes from "disarming the power of a dominant group to control one’s own and others’ views of oneself", and gaining control over the way one is described, and hence, one's self-image , self-control and self-understanding . Brontsema wrote that "At the heart of linguistic reclamation is the right of self-definition , of forging and naming one’s own existence." Other scholars have connected this concept to that of self-labelling . The empowerment process, and

1853-459: A pet name or as a term of endearment." The examples it cites from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries are not sexual. Another example, not cited by the OED, is one of the main characters of E. Nesbit 's Five Children and It - Jane, nicknamed Pussy by her siblings. The verb pussyfoot , meaning to walk softly or to speak in an evasive or cautious manner, may come from the adjective pussy-footed "having

1962-629: A requirement in a number of occupations and professions such as medicine and computing. English has become so important in scientific publishing that more than 80 percent of all scientific journal articles indexed by Chemical Abstracts in 1998 were written in English, as were 90 percent of all articles in natural science publications by 1996 and 82 percent of articles in humanities publications by 1995. International communities such as international business people may use English as an auxiliary language , with an emphasis on vocabulary suitable for their domain of interest. This has led some scholars to develop

2071-407: A rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection and a fairly fixed subject–verb–object word order . Modern English relies more on auxiliary verbs and word order for the expression of complex tenses , aspects and moods , as well as passive constructions , interrogatives , and some negation . The earliest form of English

2180-744: A significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the United States (at least 231 million), the United Kingdom (60 million), Canada (19 million), Australia (at least 17 million), South Africa (4.8 million), Ireland (4.2 million), and New Zealand (3.7 million). In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide

2289-618: A soldier of the New Model Army . Tory (originally from the Middle Irish word for 'pursuer' tóraidhe ), Whig (from whiggamore ; see the Whiggamore Raid ) and Suffragette are other British examples. In the American colonies, British officers used Yankee , a term originated in reference to Dutch settlers, as a derogatory term against the colonists. British officers created

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2398-447: A verb ending ( present plural): From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Old English gradually transformed through language contact with Old Norse in some regions. The waves of Norse (Viking) colonisation of northern parts of the British Isles in the 8th and 9th centuries put Old English into intense contact with Old Norse , a North Germanic language. Norse influence was strongest in the north-eastern varieties of Old English spoken in

2507-450: A word can be seen as acceptable when used by the members of the community that has reclaimed it (in-group usage), but its use by outside parties (out-group usage) can still be seen as derogatory and thus controversial. For example, Brontsema noted in 2003 in his discussion of the reclaimed terms that while "[the term nigger ] may be acceptable for African Americans to use it freely, it is off-limits to whites, whose usage of nigger cannot be

2616-531: A word denies it to those who would want to use it to oppress others and represents a form of moral victory for the group that reclaimed it. In 2017, the US Supreme Court , heard arguments for Matal v. Tam . In that case, the US Patent and Trademark Office refused a trademark registration for an Asian American band, The Slants , because it deemed the term disparaging. However, the court ruled unanimously in

2725-552: Is Old Frisian , but even some centuries after the Anglo-Saxon migration, Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility with other Germanic varieties. Even in the 9th and 10th centuries, amidst the Danelaw and other Viking invasions, there is historical evidence that Old Norse and Old English retained considerable mutual intelligibility, although probably the northern dialects of Old English were more similar to Old Norse than

2834-502: Is a word that was at one time pejorative but has been brought back into acceptable usage, usually starting within its original target, i.e. the communities that were pejoratively described by that word, and later spreading to the general populace as well. Some of the terms being reclaimed have originated as non-pejorative terms that over time became pejorative. Reclaiming them can be seen as restoring their original intent. This, however, does not apply to all such words as some were used in

2943-450: Is also a variant spelling of pursy or pursive , obsolete words for 'fat, pot-bellied, short of breath, broken-winded, asthmatic (of a horse)'. Both in English and in German puss was used as a "call-name" for cats, but in English pussy was used as a synonym for the word cat in other uses as well. In addition to cats, the word was also used for rabbits and hares . In the 19th century,

3052-459: Is also undergoing change under the influence of American English, fuelled by the strong presence of American English in the media and the prestige associated with the United States as a world power. As of 2016 , 400 million people spoke English as their first language , and 1.1 billion spoke it as a secondary language. English is the largest language by number of speakers . English

3161-558: Is also used in a derogatory sense to mean cowardly, weak, or easily fatigued. The Collins Dictionary says: "( taboo, slang, mainly US) an ineffectual or timid person." It may refer to a male who is not considered sufficiently masculine, as in: "The coach calls us pussies." Men who are dominated by women (particularly by their partners or spouses and at one time referred to as "hen-pecked"; see pecking order ) can be referred to as pussy-whipped (or simply whipped in slightly more polite society or media). This may be used simply to denigrate

3270-603: Is also widely used in media and literature, and the number of English language books published annually in India is the third largest in the world after the US and UK. However, English is rarely spoken as a first language, numbering only around a couple hundred-thousand people, and less than 5% of the population speak fluent English in India. David Crystal claimed in 2004 that, combining native and non-native speakers, India now has more people who speak or understand English than any other country in

3379-407: Is an official language of countries populated by few descendants of native speakers of English. It has also become by far the most important language of international communication when people who share no native language meet anywhere in the world. The Indian linguist Braj Kachru distinguished countries where English is spoken with a three circles model . In his model, Kachru based his model on

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3488-528: Is called Old English or Anglo-Saxon ( c.  450–1150 ). Old English developed from a set of West Germanic dialects, often grouped as Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic , and originally spoken along the coasts of Frisia , Lower Saxony and southern Jutland by Germanic peoples known to the historical record as the Angles , Saxons , and Jutes . From the 5th century, the Anglo-Saxons settled Britain as

3597-576: Is either the official language or one of the official languages in 59 sovereign states (such as India , Ireland , and Canada ). In some other countries, it is the sole or dominant language for historical reasons without being explicitly defined by law (such as in the United States and United Kingdom ). It is a co-official language of the United Nations , the European Union , and many other international and regional organisations. It has also become

3706-527: Is often arbitrarily defined as beginning with the conquest of England by William the Conqueror in 1066, but it developed further in the period from 1150 to 1500. With the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the now-Norsified Old English language was subject to another wave of intense contact, this time with Old French , in particular Old Norman French , influencing it as a superstrate. The Norman French spoken by

3815-567: Is often the subject of double entendre . The etymology of the word is not clear. Several different senses of the word have different histories or origins. The earliest records of pussy are in the 19th century, meaning something fluffy. The noun pussy meaning "cat" comes from the Modern English word puss , a conventional name or term of address for a cat. Cognates are common to several Germanic languages , including Dutch poes and Middle Low German pūse , which are also used to call

3924-424: Is routinely used to communicate with foreigners and often in higher education. In these countries, although English is not used for government business, its widespread use puts them at the boundary between the "outer circle" and "expanding circle". English is unusual among world languages in how many of its users are not native speakers but speakers of English as a second or foreign language. Many users of English in

4033-517: Is spoken by communities on every continent and on islands in all the major oceans. The countries where English is spoken can be grouped into different categories according to how English is used in each country. The "inner circle" countries with many native speakers of English share an international standard of written English and jointly influence speech norms for English around the world. English does not belong to just one country, and it does not belong solely to descendants of English settlers. English

4142-465: Is the most spoken language in the world, primarily due to the global influences of the former British Empire (succeeded by the Commonwealth of Nations ) and the United States . English is the third-most spoken native language , after Standard Chinese and Spanish ; it is also the most widely learned second language in the world, with more second-language speakers than native speakers. English

4251-777: Is the third person pronoun group beginning with th- ( they, them, their ) which replaced the Anglo-Saxon pronouns with h- ( hie, him, hera ). Other core Norse loanwords include "give", "get", "sky", "skirt", "egg", and "cake", typically displacing a native Anglo-Saxon equivalent. Old Norse in this era retained considerable mutual intelligibility with some dialects of Old English, particularly northern ones. Englischmen þeyz hy hadde fram þe bygynnyng þre manner speche, Souþeron, Northeron, and Myddel speche in þe myddel of þe lond, ... Noþeles by comyxstion and mellyng, furst wiþ Danes, and afterward wiþ Normans, in menye þe contray longage ys asperyed, and som vseþ strange wlaffyng, chyteryng, harryng, and garryng grisbytting. Although, from

4360-943: The Anglic languages in the British Isles , and into the Frisian languages and Low German /Low Saxon on the continent. The Frisian languages, which together with the Anglic languages form the Anglo-Frisian languages , are the closest living relatives of English. Low German/Low Saxon is also closely related, and sometimes English, the Frisian languages, and Low German are grouped together as the North Sea Germanic languages, though this grouping remains debated. Old English evolved into Middle English , which in turn evolved into Modern English. Particular dialects of Old and Middle English also developed into

4469-594: The Anglo-Saxons . Late Old English borrowed some grammar and core vocabulary from Old Norse , a North Germanic language . Then, Middle English borrowed vocabulary extensively from French dialects , which are the source of approximately 28% of Modern English words , and from Latin , which is the source of an additional 28% . As such, though most of its total vocabulary comes from Romance languages , Modern English's grammar, phonology, and most commonly used words in everyday use keep it genealogically classified under

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4578-479: The Augustinian canon Orrm , which highlights the blending of both Old English and Anglo-Norman elements in English for the first time. In Wycliff'e Bible of the 1380s, the verse Matthew 8:20 was written: Foxis han dennes, and briddis of heuene han nestis . Here the plural suffix -n on the verb have is still retained, but none of the case endings on the nouns are present. By the 12th century Middle English

4687-537: The Danelaw area around York, which was the centre of Norse colonisation; today these features are still particularly present in Scots and Northern English . The centre of Norsified English was in the Midlands around Lindsey . After 920 CE, when Lindsey was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon polity, English spread extensively throughout the region. An element of Norse influence that continues in all English varieties today

4796-532: The European Free Trade Association , Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) set English as their organisation's sole working language even though most members are not countries with a majority of native English speakers. While the European Union (EU) allows member states to designate any of the national languages as an official language of

4905-584: The United Nations at the end of World War II , English had become pre-eminent and is now the main worldwide language of diplomacy and international relations. It is one of six official languages of the United Nations. Many other worldwide international organisations, including the International Olympic Committee , specify English as a working language or official language of the organisation. Many regional international organisations such as

5014-511: The palatalisation of consonants that were velar consonants in Proto-Germanic (see Phonological history of Old English § Palatalization ). The earliest varieties of an English language, collectively known as Old English or "Anglo-Saxon", evolved from a group of North Sea Germanic dialects brought to Britain in the 5th century. Old English dialects were later influenced by Old Norse -speaking Viking invaders and settlers , starting in

5123-558: The "outer circle" countries are countries such as the Philippines , Jamaica , India , Pakistan , Singapore , Malaysia and Nigeria with a much smaller proportion of native speakers of English but much use of English as a second language for education, government, or domestic business, and its routine use for school instruction and official interactions with the government. Those countries have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from an English-based creole to

5232-596: The 8th and 9th centuries. Middle English began in the late 11th century after the Norman Conquest of England, when a considerable amount of Old French vocabulary was incorporated into English over some three centuries. Early Modern English began in the late 15th century with the start of the Great Vowel Shift and the Renaissance trend of borrowing further Latin and Greek words and roots, concurrent with

5341-595: The Angles. English may have a small amount of substrate influence from Common Brittonic, and a number of possible Brittonicisms in English have been proposed, but whether most of these supposed Brittonicisms are actually a direct result of Brittonic substrate influence is disputed. Old English was divided into four dialects: the Anglian dialects ( Mercian and Northumbrian ) and the Saxon dialects ( Kentish and West Saxon ). Through

5450-512: The British Empire in the 1950s and 1960s, former colonies often did not reject English but rather continued to use it as independent countries setting their own language policies. For example, the view of the English language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India. English

5559-537: The Early Modern period includes the works of William Shakespeare and the translation of the Bible commissioned by King James I . Even after the vowel shift the language still sounded different from Modern English: for example, the consonant clusters /kn ɡn sw/ in knight , gnat , and sword were still pronounced. Many of the grammatical features that a modern reader of Shakespeare might find quaint or archaic represent

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5668-628: The English Language , which introduced standard spellings of words and usage norms. In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of

5777-543: The English-speaking inner circle countries outside Britain helped level dialect distinctions and produce koineised forms of English in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. The majority of immigrants to the United States without British ancestry rapidly adopted English after arrival. Now the majority of the United States population are monolingual English speakers. English has ceased to be an "English language" in

5886-676: The Germanic branch. It exists on a dialect continuum with Scots and is then most closely related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages . English is an Indo-European language and belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . Old English originated from a Germanic tribal and linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, whose languages gradually evolved into

5995-550: The Roman economy and administration collapsed . By the 7th century, this Germanic language of the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in Britain , replacing the languages of Roman Britain (43–409): Common Brittonic , a Celtic language , and British Latin , brought to Britain by the Roman occupation. At this time, these dialects generally resisted influence from the then-local Brittonic and Latin languages. England and English (originally Ænglaland and Ænglisc ) are both named after

6104-490: The Union, in practice English is the main working language of EU organisations. Although in most countries English is not an official language, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language . In the countries of the EU, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in nineteen of the twenty-five member states where it is not an official language (that is, the countries other than Ireland and Malta ). In

6213-563: The United States. The name attempts to reclaim the derogatory term and was never intended to be an anatomical representation. Words referring to cats are used as vulgar slang for female genitals in some other European languages as well. Examples include German Muschi (literally "house cat"), French chatte ("female cat", also used to refer to sexual intercourse), and Dutch poes ("puss"). The Portuguese term rata (literally "female rat") and Norwegian mus ("mouse") are also animal terms used as vulgar slang for women's genitals. The word pussy

6322-476: The act of reappropriation "will feel powerful and therefore see his or her group label as less stigmatizing. Observers will infer that the group has power and will therefore see the label as less saturated in negativity". Although those terms are most often used in the context of language, this concept has also been used in relation to other cultural concepts, for example in the discussion of reappropriation of stereotypes , reappropriation of popular culture (e.g.,

6431-510: The areas of human sexuality , gender roles , sexual orientation , etc. Among these are: In England, Cavalier was a derogatory nickname reappropriated as self-identification, in contrast to the term Roundhead which, despite being used by the Royalists for the supporters of the Parliamentary cause, remained a derisory word up to the point of it being a punishable offense if used to refer to

6540-449: The band's favor. Washington University in St. Louis conducted an extensive study on reappropriation based on the band name and found that reclaimed words could be an effective tool for neutralizing disparaging words: "Reappropriation does seem to work in the sense of defusing insults, rendering them less disparaging and harmful." There are many recent examples of linguistic reappropriation in

6649-407: The base from which English spreads to other countries in the world. Estimates of the numbers of second language and foreign-language English speakers vary greatly from 470 million to more than 1 billion, depending on how proficiency is defined. Linguist David Crystal estimates that non-native speakers now outnumber native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1. In Kachru's three-circles model,

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6758-449: The basis for the required controlled natural languages Seaspeak and Airspeak, used as international languages of seafaring and aviation. English used to have parity with French and German in scientific research, but now it dominates that field. It achieved parity with French as a language of diplomacy at the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919. By the time of the foundation of

6867-400: The beginning, Englishmen had three manners of speaking, southern, northern and midlands speech in the middle of the country, ... Nevertheless, through intermingling and mixing, first with Danes and then with Normans, amongst many the country language has arisen, and some use strange stammering, chattering, snarling, and grating gnashing. John Trevisa , c.  1385 Middle English

6976-449: The common name for the party. It eventually became a popular name, sufficiently so that consumer products like tea, candy, and even a freighter were branded with the name. Anarchism was mostly a derogatory term used by opponents of collectivist forms of socialism, until it was adopted by the anarchist movement in the late 1800s. During the 2016 United States presidential election , Hillary Clinton referred to some Trump supporters as

7085-638: The consensus of educated English speakers around the world, without any oversight by any government or international organisation. American listeners readily understand most British broadcasting, and British listeners readily understand most American broadcasting. Most English speakers around the world can understand radio programmes, television programmes, and films from many parts of the English-speaking world. Both standard and non-standard varieties of English can include both formal or informal styles, distinguished by word choice and syntax and use both technical and non-technical registers. The settlement history of

7194-461: The de facto lingua franca of diplomacy, science , technology, international trade, logistics, tourism, aviation, entertainment, and the Internet . English accounts for at least 70% of total speakers of the Germanic language branch, and as of 2021 , Ethnologue estimated that there were over 1.5 billion speakers worldwide. Old English emerged from a group of West Germanic dialects spoken by

7303-656: The denial of language as a tool of oppression as abuse of power, has also been stressed by scholars such as Judith Butler and Michel Foucault , the latter who also referred to it as a " reverse discourse ". In terms of the wider sociopolitical empowerment process, reclamation process has also been credited with promoting social justice , and building group solidarity ; activists groups that engage in this process have been argued to be more likely to be seen as representative of their groups and see those groups as raising in power and status in their society. Scholars have argued that those who use such terms to describe themselves in

7412-476: The development of English was influenced by a long series of invasions of the British Isles by other peoples and languages, particularly Old Norse and French dialects . These left a profound mark of their own on the language, so that English shows some similarities in vocabulary and grammar with many languages outside its linguistic clades —but it is not mutually intelligible with any of those languages either. Some scholars have argued that English can be considered

7521-467: The distinct characteristics of Early Modern English. In the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, written in Early Modern English, Matthew 8:20 says, "The Foxes haue holes and the birds of the ayre haue nests." This exemplifies the loss of case and its effects on sentence structure (replacement with subject–verb–object word order, and the use of of instead of the non-possessive genitive), and

7630-401: The early period of Old English were written using a runic script . By the 6th century, a Latin alphabet was adopted, written with half-uncial letterforms . It included the runic letters wynn ⟨ ƿ ⟩ and thorn ⟨ þ ⟩ , and the modified Latin letters eth ⟨ ð ⟩ , and ash ⟨ æ ⟩ . Old English is essentially

7739-618: The early versions of the song Yankee Doodle , as a criticism of the uncultured colonists, but during the Revolution, as the colonists began to reappropriate the label yankee as a point of pride, they likewise reappropriated the song, altering verses, and turning it into a patriotic anthem. In the 1850s in the United States, a secretive political party was derisively dubbed the Know Nothing party, based on their penchant for saying "I know nothing" when asked for details by outsiders; this became

7848-539: The educational reforms of King Alfred in the 9th century and the influence of the kingdom of Wessex , the West Saxon dialect became the standard written variety . The epic poem Beowulf is written in West Saxon, and the earliest English poem, Cædmon's Hymn , is written in Northumbrian. Modern English developed mainly from Mercian, but the Scots language developed from Northumbrian. A few short inscriptions from

7957-416: The eighteenth century, and from there further extended to refer to sexual intercourse involving a woman by the twentieth century. Webster's Third International Dictionary suggests that pussy in the sense of "vulva" may be connected to Old Norse pūss and Old English pusa , meaning 'pocket' or 'purse'. Meanings of the verb relate to the common noun senses, including "to act like a cat", "to act like

8066-684: The elite in England eventually developed into the Anglo-Norman language . Because Norman was spoken primarily by the elites and nobles, while the lower classes continued speaking English, the main influence of Norman was the introduction of a wide range of loanwords related to politics, legislation and prestigious social domains. Middle English also greatly simplified the inflectional system, probably in order to reconcile Old Norse and Old English, which were inflectionally different but morphologically similar. The distinction between nominative and accusative cases

8175-408: The expanding circle use it to communicate with other people from the expanding circle, so that interaction with native speakers of English plays no part in their decision to use the language. Non-native varieties of English are widely used for international communication, and speakers of one such variety often encounter features of other varieties. Very often today a conversation in English anywhere in

8284-710: The growing economic and cultural influence of the United States and its status as a superpower following the Second World War has, along with worldwide broadcasting in English by the BBC and other broadcasters, caused the language to spread across the planet much faster. In the 21st century, English is more widely spoken and written than any language has ever been. As Modern English developed, explicit norms for standard usage were published, and spread through official media such as public education and state-sponsored publications. In 1755, Samuel Johnson published his A Dictionary of

8393-479: The history of English was Early Modern English (1500–1700). Early Modern English was characterised by the Great Vowel Shift (1350–1700), inflectional simplification, and linguistic standardisation. The Great Vowel Shift affected the stressed long vowels of Middle English. It was a chain shift , meaning that each shift triggered a subsequent shift in the vowel system. Mid and open vowels were raised , and close vowels were broken into diphthongs . For example,

8502-407: The history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time. Countries with large communities of native speakers of English (the inner circle) include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where

8611-403: The inner-circle countries, and they may show grammatical and phonological differences from inner-circle varieties as well. The standard English of the inner-circle countries is often taken as a norm for use of English in the outer-circle countries. In the three-circles model, countries such as Poland, China, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Indonesia, Egypt, and other countries where English is taught as

8720-524: The introduction of loanwords from French ( ayre ) and word replacements ( bird originally meaning "nestling" had replaced OE fugol ). By the late 18th century, the British Empire had spread English through its colonies and geopolitical dominance. Commerce, science and technology, diplomacy, art, and formal education all contributed to English becoming the first truly global language. English also facilitated worldwide international communication. English

8829-467: The introduction of the printing press to London. This era notably culminated in the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare . The printing press greatly standardised English spelling, which has remained largely unchanged since then, despite a wide variety of later sound shifts in English dialects. Modern English has spread around the world since the 17th century as a consequence of

8938-431: The languages have descended from a single common ancestor called Proto-Germanic . Some shared features of Germanic languages include the division of verbs into strong and weak classes, the use of modal verbs , and the sound changes affecting Proto-Indo-European consonants, known as Grimm's and Verner's laws . English is classified as an Anglo-Frisian language because Frisian and English share other features, such as

9047-406: The meaning from pejorative to positive, while neutralization refers to changing the meaning from pejorative to neutral. Stigma exploitation, finally, refers to retaining the derogatory nature of such terms as a reminder that a given group has been subject to unfair treatment. Reclamation can be seen as both a psychological, individual process and as a sociological, society-wide process. In terms of

9156-445: The meaning was extended to anything soft and furry. Pussy willow , for example, is a name applied to various species in the genus Salix with furry catkins . In thieves' cant the word pussy means a "fur coat". The Oxford English Dictionary gives as the first meaning of the noun: "Chiefly colloq[uial]. A girl or woman exhibiting characteristics associated with a cat, esp[ecially] sweetness or amiability. Freq[uently] used as

9265-399: The notorious routine "Do You Want To See My Pussy?" in which they raised their skirts to reveal live kittens. In the British comedy Are You Being Served? the character Mrs. Slocombe often expressed concern for the welfare of her pussy. The double entendre made every reference to her cat seem to be a salacious and therefore humorous reference to her vulva. In the 2002 film 8 Mile ,

9374-426: The prestige varieties among the middle classes. In modern English, the loss of grammatical case is almost complete (it is now only found in pronouns, such as he and him , she and her , who and whom ), and SVO word order is mostly fixed. Some changes, such as the use of do-support , have become universalised. (Earlier English did not use the word "do" as a general auxiliary as Modern English does; at first it

9483-475: The pussy", known as the Access Hollywood tape ) provoked strong reactions by media figures and politicians across the political spectrum; an image of a snarling cat with the slogan "pussy grabs back" became a "rallying cry for female rage against Trump". Pink " pussyhats " (knitted caps with cat-like ears) were a notable feature of the worldwide protests held the day after Trump's inauguration as President of

9592-453: The reappropriation of science fiction literature into elite, high literature ), or reappropriation of traditions. Reclaimed words often remain controversial for a time, due to their original pejorative nature. For some terms, even "reclaimed" usage by members of the community concerned is a subject of controversy. Often, not all members of a given community support the idea that a particular slur should be reclaimed at all. In other cases,

9701-410: The reclamation of terms have argued that such terms are irredeemable and are forever connected to their derogatory meaning, and their usage will continue to hurt those who remember its original intent and even reinforce the existing stigma. The supporters of reclamation argue, in turn, that many such words had non-derogatory meanings that are simply being restored and that in either case, reclaiming such

9810-657: The reign of Henry V . Around 1430, the Court of Chancery in Westminster began using English in its official documents , and a new standard form of Middle English, known as Chancery Standard , developed from the dialects of London and the East Midlands . In 1476, William Caxton introduced the printing press to England and began publishing the first printed books in London, expanding the influence of this form of English. Literature from

9919-482: The relationship to obtain that access, combining two uses of the word pussy. Pussy is one of a large number of English words that has both erotic and non-erotic meanings. Such double entendres have long been used in the creation of sexual humor. This double meaning of "pussy" has been used for over a hundred years by performers, including the late-19th-century vaudeville act the Barrison Sisters , who performed

10028-594: The same, given its history and the general history of racial oppression and racial relations in the United States." A similar argument has been made in 2009 for words associated with the LGBT movement like queer or dyke . A related discourse occurred with regards to the Washington Redskins name controversy , with the Native American community divided on whether the term has been reclaimed or not. Those opposed to

10137-464: The sense of belonging only to people who are ethnically English . Use of English is growing country-by-country internally and for international communication. Most people learn English for practical rather than ideological reasons. Many speakers of English in Africa have become part of an "Afro-Saxon" language community that unites Africans from different countries. As decolonisation proceeded throughout

10246-474: The southern dialects. Theoretically, as late as the 900s AD, a commoner from certain (northern) parts of England could hold a conversation with a commoner from certain parts of Scandinavia. Research continues into the details of the myriad tribes in peoples in England and Scandinavia and the mutual contacts between them. The translation of Matthew 8:20 from 1000 shows examples of case endings ( nominative plural, accusative plural, genitive singular) and

10355-499: The status of women in Russian society. Band member "Kot" says that she knows how the word is used in English, and that it is also used in Russian as term of endearment for little girls. These various meanings create a tension with the word "riot", which the group likes. In 2017 Planned Parenthood released a series of short videos on YouTube about female sexual health , with the overall title "How to take care of your pussy". Instead of

10464-455: The study of English as an auxiliary language. The trademarked Globish uses a relatively small subset of English vocabulary (about 1500 words, designed to represent the highest use in international business English) in combination with the standard English grammar. Other examples include Simple English . The increased use of the English language globally has had an effect on other languages, leading to some English words being assimilated into

10573-496: The two to create a truly splendid video series." The series has been shortlisted for a Shorty Award . English language English is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , whose speakers, called Anglophones , originated in early medieval England on the island of Great Britain . The namesake of the language is the Angles , one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to Britain . It

10682-459: The vocabularies of other languages. This influence of English has led to concerns about language death , and to claims of linguistic imperialism , and has provoked resistance to the spread of English; however the number of speakers continues to increase because many people around the world think that English provides them with opportunities for better employment and improved lives. Reappropriation A reclaimed or reappropriated word

10791-473: The word bite was originally pronounced as the word beet is today, and the second vowel in the word about was pronounced as the word boot is today. The Great Vowel Shift explains many irregularities in spelling since English retains many spellings from Middle English, and it also explains why English vowel letters have very different pronunciations from the same letters in other languages. English began to rise in prestige, relative to Norman French, during

10900-447: The word "pussy" being shown or spoken, a cat appears instead. The visuals consist mainly of cats, playing on the popularity of cat videos , with a voiceover by Sasheer Zamata . Refinery29 called it "a pretty genius metaphor" and Metro said: "If there are two things left in this world that are inherently wonderful, it's cats and vaginas. Don't argue. It's true.[...] It makes sense, then, that Planned Parenthood has decided to combine

11009-496: The word came to refer exclusively to them, and generally in a positive or neutral sense, even though the term "Jesuitical" is derived from the Society of Jesus and is used to mean things like: manipulative, conspiring, treacherous, capable of intellectually justifying anything by convoluted reasoning. Other examples can be found in the origins of Methodism ; early members were originally mocked for their "methodical" and rule-driven religious devotion, founder John Wesley embraced

11118-430: The word is used more commonly in conversations among men than in groups of women or mixed-gender groups, though subjects report using pussy more often than other slang terms for female genitals. There are women seeking to reclaim the word to symbolise sexual pleasure, power, and trust in their bodies (e.g. around childbirth ). Donald Trump 's use of the word to describe celebrity interactions with women ("grab them by

11227-785: The world may include no native speakers of English at all, even while including speakers from several different countries. This is particularly true of the shared vocabulary of mathematics and the sciences. English is a pluricentric language , which means that no one national authority sets the standard for use of the language. Spoken English, including English used in broadcasting, generally follows national pronunciation standards that are established by custom rather than by regulation. International broadcasters are usually identifiable as coming from one country rather than another through their accents , but newsreader scripts are also composed largely in international standard written English . The norms of standard written English are maintained purely by

11336-539: The world, but the number of English speakers in India is uncertain, with most scholars concluding that the United States still has more speakers of English than India. Modern English, sometimes described as the first global lingua franca , is also regarded as the first world language . English is the world's most widely used language in newspaper publishing, book publishing, international telecommunications, scientific publishing, international trade, mass entertainment, and diplomacy. English is, by international treaty,

11445-438: The worldwide influence of the British Empire and the United States. Through all types of printed and electronic media in these countries, English has become the leading language of international discourse and the lingua franca in many regions and professional contexts such as science, navigation , and law. Its modern grammar is the result of a gradual change from a dependent-marking pattern typical of Indo-European with

11554-405: Was adopted in parts of North America, parts of Africa, Oceania, and many other regions. When they obtained political independence, some of the newly independent states that had multiple indigenous languages opted to continue using English as the official language to avoid the political and other difficulties inherent in promoting any one indigenous language above the others. In the 20th century

11663-511: Was fully developed, integrating both Norse and French features; it continued to be spoken until the transition to early Modern English around 1500. Middle English literature includes Geoffrey Chaucer 's The Canterbury Tales , and Thomas Malory 's Le Morte d'Arthur . In the Middle English period, the use of regional dialects in writing proliferated, and dialect traits were even used for effect by authors such as Chaucer. The next period in

11772-500: Was lost except in personal pronouns, the instrumental case was dropped, and the use of the genitive case was limited to indicating possession . The inflectional system regularised many irregular inflectional forms, and gradually simplified the system of agreement, making word order less flexible. The transition from Old to Middle English can be placed during the writing of the Ormulum . The oldest Middle English texts that were written by

11881-533: Was only used in question constructions, and even then was not obligatory. Now, do-support with the verb have is becoming increasingly standardised.) The use of progressive forms in -ing , appears to be spreading to new constructions, and forms such as had been being built are becoming more common. Regularisation of irregular forms also slowly continues (e.g. dreamed instead of dreamt ), and analytical alternatives to inflectional forms are becoming more common (e.g. more polite instead of politer ). British English

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