Languages reflect the societies that use them – and English is riddled with sexism Should dictionaries include sexist words and definitions? At university I had a lecturer of medieval language and literature who was so wonderfully idiosyncratic that you will no doubt suspect I have made him up. His name was Alaric. He recited
Beowulf from memory to silence the room and was known to remove his shoes before commencing a lecture. You can find a video of him rapping the opening lines of
Piers Plowman on YouTube. He once took our class to York for the Jorvik Viking Festival, and led us round the medieval parts of the city, explaining the origins of the street names. The innocuous Grape Lane was originally Grapcunt Lane – from the Old English “