Hacker News Reader

Comment by voldacar | Hacker News Reader

Even if you completely ignore the meaning and usage context of these words, there are some significant differences.

The male words are sharper, rougher, more incisive. Azimuth, teraflop, neodymium, yakuza. The female words are rounder, smoother, less threatening. Verbena, doula, sateen, chenille.

This is extremely interesting and not subtle at all

View on HN

A lot of the "female" words are fashion/style related. For a long time, France (and Italy) dominated the fashion world, so a lot of technical terms around fashion are French, which probably explains the distinction.

Reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect

Are you referring to how the words "feel" in your mind (≈ average of a cluster of associated words) or about the sounds in the words?

Plosives (PaT), sibilants (Sassy/SHow) or glottals (CoCKpit) sound "sharper" to me than their voiced equivalents (BaD, Zoo/menaGerie, GooGle). Fricatives (FaVorite, baTH/baTHE) or nasals (NuMber) or taps (RoLe) tend to sound longer and softer.

It's definitely both. It's not just the physical sounds I make when pronouncing them, but the mood and the overall "atmosphere" of the words that is different.

This is an interesting observation, because the next question should be whether they know the word exists or they just "feel like" it exists (see sibling comment about the Bouba/Kiki effect).

Hmm I'm not so sure about that. To a textile worker, the difference between sateen and corduroy would be as sharp and incisive as the difference between azimuth and altitude is to an astronomer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com