Month: November 2025

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English English language Etymology Expression Gender Grammar Language Linguistics Usage Word origin Writing

Gender issues (no, not those)

Q: Why did grammatical gender ever develop in the first place, and to what purpose? English lost it centuries ago, apparently to no ill effect.

A: Grammatical gender, a system for categorizing  nouns into classes, is believed to have first appeared in speech in ancient times, before the existence of written language. So there’s no record of why it developed, but linguists have suggested several possibilities.

The most common theory is that grammatical gender originally consisted of two classes—animate and inanimate—and they evolved into various other classes, such as masculine, feminine, and neuter.

For most European and some Asian languages, this evolution is thought to have taken place in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), a reconstructed prehistoric language believed spoken from about 4500 B.C. to 2500 B.C.

Why, you ask, did grammatical gender develop in the first place? Well, a system for categorizing nouns into classes may have been especially helpful in ancient times, when some terms that we now consider inanimate had both animate and inanimate versions.

In Indo-European Language and Culture (2010), the historical linguist Benjamin W. Fortson has a good example of how two of the fundamental types of matter in ancient times had animate and inanimate forms:

“An interesting fact of the reconstructed PIE lexicon is that ‘fire’ and ‘water’ could each be expressed by different terms, one of animate gender and one of inanimate gender; this has been taken to reflect two conceptions of fire and water, as animate beings and as substances.”

English, like other Germanic languages, originally had grammatical gender. In Old English, a noun could be masculine, feminine, or neuter. However, grammatical gender fell out of favor in the late Old English and early Middle English of the 11th to 13th centuries.

English now has natural gender, a system in which nouns and pronouns are gendered if they correspond to a biological sex (words like “mother,” “father,” “aunt,” “uncle,” “he,” “she”). A few figurative exceptions include referring to a ship or favorite car as “she.”

The noun “gender” has been used since the 14th century to mean grammatical gender, and since the 15th in the sense of males or females as a group, as we say in a 2025 post.

When “sex” first appeared in the 14th century, it referred to the male or female categories. It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century that “sex” also came to mean the sexual act.

And as we note in our earlier post, that led to the increasing use of “gender” in place of “sex” for the biological categories.

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English English language Etymology Expression Language Phrase origin Religion Word origin Writing

Genesis: ‘you and I’ v. ‘you and me’

Q: Do you think “you and I” should be “you and me” in the first part of Genesis 31:44 (English Standard Version): “Come now, let us make a covenant, you and I. And let it be a witness between you and me”? The verse is similar in the King James Version.

A: Many English translations of the Bible use “let us” with “you and I” in Genesis 31:44, but many others use “let us” with “you and me.” In other words, both usages are common in biblical writing.

In contemporary English, especially in speech, “let’s” (or “let us”) is often followed by either “you and me” or “you and I”—with or without words or punctuation between the two parts.

As we say in a 2012 post (“Does ‘let’s’ need lexical support?”), both are acceptable in informal English. We also wrote about the usage in a 2021 post (“Let’s You and Him Fight”).

The earliest English version of Genesis uses “make we” in the sense of “let us make” in verse 31:44, but doesn’t follow it directly with either “you and I” or “you and me”:

“Therfor come thou, and make we boond of pees, that it be witnessyng bitwixe me, and thee” (from the Wycliffe Bible, Early Version, circa 1382, a translation of the verse from the Latin Vulgate).

The first English version of Genesis 31:44 that uses “let us” (followed by “I and thou”) is from William Tyndale’s 1530 translation of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible:

“Now therfore come on let us make a bonde I and thou together and let it be a wytnesse betwene the and me.”

The verse in the original King James Version (1611), largely based on the Hebrew text, also has “I and thou” (“Now therefore come thou, let us make a covenant, I and thou; and let it be for a witness between me and thee”).

However, the verse in the New King James Version (1982) has “you and I” (“Now therefore, come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.”

Finally, here are the Hebrew, Latin, and Greek versions of Genesis 31:44 that were the sources of the early English translations:

  • Leningrad Codex, dating from around 1010, the oldest surviving complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible: “וְעַתָּ֗ה לְכָ֛ה נִכְרְתָ֥ה בְרִ֖ית אֲנִ֣י וָאָ֑תָּה וְהָיָ֥ה לְעֵ֖ד בֵּינִ֥י וּבֵינֶֽךָ” (“Now come let us make a covenant I and you and let it be for a witness between me and you”).
  • The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Old Testament from the third century BC: “νῦν οὖν δεῦρο διαθώμεθα διαθήκην ἐγὼ καὶ σὺ καὶ ἔσται εἰς μαρτύριον ἀνὰ μέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ” (“Now therefore come let us make a covenant I and you and it shall be unto a witness between me and you”).
  • The Vulgate, a Latin translation of the Bible dating from the late fourth and early fifth centuries: “Veni ergo et ineamus foedus, ut sit testimonium inter me et te” (“Come therefore, and let us enter into a covenant, so that it may be a witness between me and you”).

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English English language Etymology Expression Language Phrase origin Usage Word origin Writing

He’s not ‘quite quite,’ you know

Q: In the class-conscious Sussex, England, of the 1950s, my mother would label certain people at the village Women’s Institute “not quite quite.” What is the history of this usage? And does “not quite quite” suggest even less gentility than “not quite”?

A: As far as we can tell, the use of “not quite” to mean socially unacceptable first appeared in the mid-19th century, and the longer term, “not quite quite,” a decade later.

The Oxford English Dictionary describes “not quite” as a colloquial adjective meaning “not wholly socially acceptable or respectable.”

The earliest OED citation is from The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867), by Anthony Trollope. In this passage, Mr. Walker is speaking of Mr. Toogood, a fellow attorney:

“still he wasn’t quite,—not quite, you know—‘not quite so much of a gentleman as I am,’—Mr Walker would have said, had he spoken out freely that which he insinuated. But he contented himself with the emphasis he put upon the ‘not quite,’ which expressed his meaning fully.”

The OED, an etymological dictionary, notes that “quite” here can be modified by another “quite,” but it doesn’t comment on whether the addition alters the meaning.

We’d describe “not quite quite” as an intensified “not quite,” as does Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (8th ed., 1984, edited by Paul Beale):

“quite quite (Usu. in neg.) An intensification of quite, adj., as ‘He’s really not quite quite, is he, do you think?’: middle-class coll. [colloquial].”

The earliest example we’ve found for the expanded “not quite quite” is from Heaps of Money (1877), a novel by the English writer William Edward Norris. In this exchange, Mainwaring discusses his friend Ada with another friend, Linda:

“She is one of the most popular girls I know.”

“I daresay,” said Linda; “but is she quite—quite —?’’

“Quite a lady? Well, yes, I think she is.”

The next example we’ve seen is from A Bubble (1895), a novel by the Scottish writer Lucy Bethia Walford.

In this passage, two young women discuss a party to which medical students from the University of Edinburgh will be invited. One woman, Clara, is from London society, and the other is a professor’s wife who feels she should warn Clara about the company she will meet:

“You understand, dear Clara, that these young men—a great many of them—are not quite—quite—?”

“Half the people one knows are not ‘quite—quite,’ ” said Clara, frankly.

[The professor’s wife replies:] “Of course society is dreadfully mixed now-a-days.”

The OED’s first “not quite quite” example, which we’ve expanded, is from The Whispering Gallery: Leaves From a Diplomat’s Diary (1926), a fictional diary written anonymously by Hesketh Pearson, an English actor, theater director, and writer:

“On arrival at one of these affairs my hostess bustled up to me and said: ‘Oh, you must know H. G. Wells! He’s coming to-night. Do tell me what you think of him. He’s not “quite quite,” you know, but he’s so clever.’ ”

We’ve also expanded the dictionary’s most recent citation, which is from “And Now, Pragmatisim,” a column by Anna Quindlen in The New York Times (April 8, 1992):

“But over and over you hear about folks who are uncomfortable with him, who think he’s too slick or too polished or just not quite quite. And then they meet him. And their opinion changes. Bill Clinton is a guy who does better up close and personal.”

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English English language Etymology Expression Football Language Usage Word origin Writing

Matriculating down the field

Q: When I hear football sportscasters state that Team 1 has “matriculated” the football down the field, I (perhaps smugly) question whether the sportscasters have ever matriculated themselves.

A: Standard dictionaries define “matriculate” as to enroll or be enrolled at a college or university, but at least one of the dictionaries, Merriam-Webster, has the American football sense on its radar.

M-W discusses the new usage in its “Words We’re Watching” feature, which concerns “words we are increasingly seeing in use but that have not yet met our criteria for entry.”

“So how did we get from enrolling in higher education to football?” the dictionary asks. “We have, it seems, one man to thank: Hank Stram.”

Stram, coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, apparently coined the usage on Jan. 11, 1970, at Super Bowl IV in New Orleans, where the Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings 23 to 7.

In this video from the game, Stram uses several colorful expressions, including “Let’s keep matriculating the ball down the field, boys.”

“We of course do not know Hank Stram’s thoughts about the word matriculate,” M-W says. “It’s possible he believed his use was a simple and logical extension of the established one. It’s also possible he just liked how matriculate sounded and plunked it into a context he thought sounded good.”

Whatever his thinking, this colloquial use of “matriculate” is now common in football and means to advance the ball down the field, often methodically.

Here’s a recent example from a report of a game between the Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars: “The Chiefs then matriculated the ball down the field with a 12-play, 86-yard drive” (CBS Sports, Oct. 7, 2025).

 As for the history, English borrowed “matriculate” in the 16th century from the post-classical Latin verb matriculare (to enroll) and noun matricula (an index or catalogue), according to the Oxford English Dictionary, an etymological reference.

When “matriculate” first appeared in English in the 16th century, the OED says, it meant to “enter (a name) in the register of a university, college, etc.”

The earliest English citation is from a Jan. 19, 1557, report on a visit by representatives of Queen Mary I to the University of Cambridge to restore Roman orthodoxy after Protestant reforms under King Edward VI:

“It. vi scholers of Jesus Coll. matriculated” (“Item: six scholars of Jesus College matriculated”). A Collection of Letters, Statutes, and Other Documents From the Archives of the College of Corpus Christi, Cambridge (1838), edited by John Lamb.

(During the visit of the Queen’s representatives, many students and fellows were reexamined and registered again.)

In the 17th century, the verb took on the sense of “to be enrolled as a member of a university, college, etc.”

The first OED citation is from a sonnet by the English soldier-poet Richard Lovelace about the English poet John Hall:

“So that fair Cam [Cambridge] saw thee matriculate / At once a Tyro and a Graduate” (from “To the Genius of Mr. John Hall,” in Lucasta: Posthume Poems, 1659). The Posthume Poems were published two years after Lovelace’s death and three years after Hall’s.

This later OED example, from W. Somerset Maugham’s novel Of Human Bondage (1915), refers to Philip Carey’s brief experience at the University of Heidelberg: “He had matriculated at the university and attended one or two courses of lectures.”

We’ll end by returning to Hank Stram, the coach who’s credited with coining the football sense of “matriculate.” He expanded upon the usage in 2003 when he was inducted into the Football Hall of Fame:

“As I matriculate my way down the field of life, I will never forget this moment and you wonderful people who helped make this day possible.”

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