| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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5. Gender: Sexist Language and Assumptions
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| § 6. -ette |
| The suffix -ette, used to mean “female,” as in usherette or drum majorette, was attacked on etymological grounds long before it was widely considered sexist. Historically, -ette is the feminine form of the French diminutive suffix
-et that occurs in borrowings such as banquet, clarinet, and tablet. This feminine form occurs in such words as cigarette and lorgnette. In the 20th century,
-ette became fairly productive as an English diminutive in inanimate nouns, as in kitchenette, launderette, luncheonette, and novelette. | 1 |
| But the use of -ette to form nouns referring to women is a separate development that probably comes from its use in French to form feminine versions of masculine names, as in Antoinette and Paulette. The suffix was first applied in this sense to an English common noun in suffragette, which became the recognized term for women involved in the suffrage movement in England. Suffragette was always considered insulting by the suffragists in the United States. Nonetheless, suffragette served as the model for a number of words that referred to women who occupied positions once reserved for men, such as chaufferette and sailorette, but of these only usherette and drum majorette have survived. Even in these two terms, the use of -ette in this sense is often considered sexist for the same reason that people criticize the use of -ess: it implies that the unmarked form of the term, reserved for males, is the standard. But -ette carries with it the additional insult of being at heart a diminutive and therefore may be viewed as patronizing and belittling. | 2 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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