When Debra selected Adjectives as her subject, I suspect many of you surmised that I would select “Adverbs,” which seems a complementary part of speech.The challenge then becomes how to make the two types of linguistic modifiers work in a way that makes sense. Both are terms describing the way a specific word or phrase is being used. We (Debra and I) have often been referred to as “polar opposites”: She says “hot,” while I say “cold.” Some of those differences may be gender based; others are doubtless learned.
“Adverbs” are inherently more “flexible” than “adjectives.” “Adverbs” imply some kind of action. “Adjectives” imply some kind of static (“stuck”) state. Those of you who know Debra and me would probably agree that’s the case with (and for) us. She tends to be “flexible,” while I tend to be “fixed.” She tends to be “warm,” while I tend to be “cold.”
I suspect some of the difference is “gender driven.” Men and women, boys and girls, express their differences in a variety of ways, most of which become obvious early in life. Although both boys and girls (and men and women) play a variety of sports, including a number of sports played by both genders, the preferences for sports differ by gender. Boys and girls, men and women, can of course play sports preferred by those of the opposite sex. It does, suggest, however that boys and men and girls and women, are naturally inclined to sports that favor bodily characteristics of one gender or the other, and it doesn’t say a thing about one gender of the other being better than the other in all ways.
The differences in application by gender are obvious when you review history, especially the history of warfare. Men, on average, have more body strength (especially upper body strength) than women, and that made them better at such things as storming castle walls and killing enemy soldiers. Women are the ones who get pregnant and become responsible for producing and protecting new members of the “tribe.” That doesn’t mean that women didn’t participate in warfare. They most certainly did. Their principal value to the tribe, however, was in what they could do that men couldn’t: get pregnant and produce new tribal members. In brief, men were expendable and women weren’t. I should repeat that to ensure that no one misses it: Men were (and always have been) expendable, and women weren’t. In many ways, that is still the case.
While much of that history is behind us as a species, we can still see how such differences influence occupations today. I spent time in the Army including a tour of duty in Vietnam during our war with that country. And that’s true not just for the two of us (Joel and Debra), but for the English-speaking population in general. In general, men go to war, and women don’t. It also applies, of course, to those who speak languages other than English. The application of those differences is virtually universal: males and females of all cultures display a variety of gender-influenced behaviors. Men of all cultures—and women of all cultures—tend to engage in similar behaviors. Some of that is based on a biological imperative: women get pregnant and give birth; men can’t give birth, so their alternative seems to be go to war, which they view as “protecting the homeland.”
When time permits, think about how gender has influenced your behavior in life. Did it influence your selection of occupation? Did it influence the things you elected to do that aren’t necessarily gender specific? Did you ever own or drive a motorcycle? My guess is that far more men than women will admit to having owned and driven a motorcycle. In general, men engage in more risky behaviors than women. The bottom line: In terms of preservation of the species, men are more expendable than women. In brief, men are the linguistic equivalents of nouns and adjectives; women are the linguistic equivalent of verbs and adverbs.
As you think about how this applies to your own life and behavior, I will be interested in knowing your thoughts. Are you a noun or a verb? Are you an adverb or an adjective? I suspect you could have some fun discussing this concept with your friends and relatives. (A quick addendum: the first time I typed “friends” for the previous sentence, it came out “fiends.”) Let me know what you think….