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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

It does seem like the female words are more obviously foreign (specifically French) whereas the male words tend towards being more technical.

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I'm seeing Greek, Latin, Japanese, German, and Danish just skimming the "male words", and plenty of the "female words" have been used in English for ages. I think that's more a familiarity effect.

Of course the roots of English include Greek and Latin and German, but words like femtosecond or piezoelectricity or teraflop or milliamp are technical terms, not old but standard words imported from another language. Maybe "femtosecond" was used by Danish scientists in the 1800's or something, but it's definitely not a word that was common in another language and then imported into English.

    Maybe "femtosecond" was used by Danish scientists in the 1800's or something, but it's definitely not a word that was common in another language and then imported into English.

Worth noting that by the percentages here fewer than 50% of males surveyed were familiar with it.

"Chambray", "chignon", "bandeau" etc. are also standard technical words imported from another language.

The female words are technical too, just in a different field to the one you are in.

That’s fair. I guess I meant “technical” in the sense of being associated with math/science/engineering.

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