Here's something from 1963 in the NYT that I chanced into as I was looking for the review of the new Netflix film titled "Blonde":
Who knew there were women's groups back then taking aim at such minor intrusions on female freedom? It seems more like something that would come up today.
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The DMV asked me if the information they put on my new license was correct and I mentioned that they'd misspelled blonde. There's no e on the male form.
"taking aim at such minor intrusions on female freedom"
How so?
Well, we've certainly devolved to "what is a woman"?
I thought the question was there to see if the woman was smart enough to operate a car...
"There's no e on the male form."
OED: "In English used by Caxton (in form blounde); reintroduced from modern French in 17th cent., and still sometimes treated as French, as to be written without final e when applied to a man, especially substantively, a blonde; in North America commonly written blond like the French masculine, but in Britain the form blonde is now preferred in all senses."
If you're treating it like a French word and using it as an adjective before a noun meaning hair, I think you should leave off the final "e" whether you're talking about men's hair or women's hair. Hair, in French, is masculine.
The blonde/blond distinction should only be for the noun, when you are calling the person "a blonde" or "a blond." Obviously, you're almost always talking about a woman when you refer to the person by hair color alone.
That's why my tag is "blond hair."
AA headline "What is a blonde?" A few inches to the right of the headline is a profile picture of our very blonde hostess. That's a blonde!
Also brunette/brunet.
Grey, Fair or Dark should be the hair colors for DMV. Of course, its somewhat useless since women dye their hair (and some men). Lucy wasn't a Redhead, and made quite a joke about that.
Blondes have more fun. Gentlemen perfer blondes. But every woman can be a blond. Some just need to pay for it.
One of the really great things that I’m anticipating from dying is never again listening to a spoiled brat American woman doing this feminist bitching over nothing.
Free at last! It’s been hell listening to rich, pampered women like Althouse doing this for 70 years.
If Hell exists, I’ll have to listen to this ghastly shit into eternity.
"Blonde" with a final "e" always gets me going.
But for the DMV to drop "blond/e" as a parameter relevant to a driver license? That seems...unwise. Because (based on thousands of bad jokes) I thought blonde-ness was predictive of driving ability.
More seriously, why not go with eye color? You can't easily bleach that.
I recently moved from one state to another, getting a new driver's license in the process. I found it very difficult to answer the question: "hair color". I started out brunette, began getting highlights and lowlights to cover the gray, which gave me a lot of blonde highlights. As a biometric, hair color isn't very accurate.
"AA headline "What is a blonde?" A few inches to the right of the headline is a profile picture of our very blonde hostess. That's a blonde!"
That shows it is too complicated a question for government forms.
I'm not even sure if my driver's license says "blonde" now. My original hair color was something that caused me to check the box "red," though that wouldn't call the right image to mind. Nor would "auburn" if they had it.
Today, the most accurate answer could be "white," if that's an option the gov't offers. But I get it ever so slightly tinted, so that it reads now as very light blonde. But there's still some of the original darker color.
Anyway, the photo is something like 10 years old and it was taken in a very distinctive light, near sunset. So it looks darker.
"I started out brunette, began getting highlights and lowlights to cover the gray..."
Oh, yes, lowlights. That explains something about the photo of me. I had lowlights put it. My hair has never been bleached at all. It's just turned white and various darkenings were done to keep it from looking mousy or washed out.
I was used to an exciting red color of hair, so the white hairs just diluted the effect and made it seem dull, especially early on (like when I was 28).
As a biometric, hair color isn't very accurate.
In today’s environment it’s only about how you identify.
If you feel blond(e), it’s rude for someone to object.
"Lowlights..." I had no idea.
That is a secret weapon used by blondes to trick us males, who are already hopelessly vulnerable to the powers of blondeness.
Isn't there a Geneva Convention that should operate here?
Feeling helpless and a little bit aggrieved.
But only a little!
PS: "auburn" sounds nice. Classy. All those extra vowels; kind of French? Definitely classy!
Anyway, not trampy.
For hair color now I would need to check off “none”.
"But I get it ever so slightly tinted, "
I did a long transition from blond and now I'm totally natural but it still looks blond to me.
My hairdresser says, "see the grey now?" But all I see is my old blond color.
Not a bad delusion really.
I think you should leave off the final "e" whether you're talking about men's hair or women's hair. Hair, in French, is masculine. M
In this usage it’s not the hair that’s blonde. “She’s a blonde” would be the preferred usage.
And are we totally skipping the use of hair color as a physical trait to identify a person? Height, age, weight, race, hair color are all
Physical characteristics we all use as identifiers. I know that each of those is problematic but when we start restricting their use we end up veiled passport photos.
"What is a blonde?"
How should I know? I'm not a biologist.
Kevin said: In today’s environment it’s only about how you identify.
True that. I put "Ferengi" when asked for my race and often use the name Gul Dukat whenever I order something at a cafe, and they ask my name. Love hearing "latte with extra shot* for Gul Dukat" being yelled out.
* I know I know; Gul Dukat probably drank plain black coffee...
ALP said...
I recently moved from one state to another, getting a new driver's license in the process. I found it very difficult to answer the question: "hair color". I started out brunette, began getting highlights and lowlights to cover the gray, which gave me a lot of blonde highlights. As a biometric, hair color isn't very accurate.
***********
I don't know if it's still the case, but years ago Japanese driver's licenses didn't even bother to note hair or eye color, as virtually all Japanese have dark brown or black hair and brown eyes.
My wife's cousins turned grey pretty early (late 20's). The one who was amazingly gorgeous, continued to be. The other one, who was merely awesomely wonderful regardless of hair color? She came through just fine.
Sorry, not getting so worked up any more about hair color.
I need more data to answer this question.
Like what was the blond/brunete playmate ratio?
Without this data we are just scratching the surface and not getting to the root of the problem.
“ In this usage it’s not the hair that’s blonde. “She’s a blonde” would be the preferred usage. ”
You’re showing the noun usage, where I agreed about the e.
If it’s an adjective, as in “blond hair,” I am saying no e if you’re trying to follow the French.
Criminals dyed their hair then, too. And female criminality was coming to the fore in the early Sixties. I.D. was for identifying people. All people.
That said, I guess I'd be Blue Heeler now.
Ann, if you want to follow the French cheveux is plural. So, blonds.
I think it has to do with eliminating the embarrassment for both parties wondering if the curtains match the shades....
We are all transitioning. Hair color. Eye color. Height. Weight. Apparent age. These things in my lifetime have all become somewhat negotiable.....There's some controversy about sex differences and sexual orientation, but our attitudes about transitioning are transitioning. I wouldn't mind being a lesbian, but the technology is not there yet.....I gave the movie Blonde a try, but it's just awful. The first ten minutes are about a deranged mother thinking up new ways to abuse her child. It was painful to watch and I turned it off. I had heard the movie was bad, but I thought it was bad in a good way--an appeal to prurient interest. The movie is bad in a bad way. There's no way you can show children being tortured in an entertaining way.
New York seem to be the center of people who get worked up over trivial matters.
I have light brown hair with some blonde streaks. When I lived in Minnesota my DL said my hair was brown. Then I moved to Hawaii, and all of a sudden I became a blonde. It said so right their on my Hawaii driver's license.
blonde
French fem. of blond (n. and adj.).
blond (adj.)
of hair, "of a golden or light golden-brown color," late 15c., from Old French blont "fair, blond" (12c.), from the same source as Medieval Latin blundus "yellow," but of uncertain origin. Perhaps from Frankish *blund or another Germanic source (compare Dutch, German, Danish blond).
If it is a Germanic word, it is possibly related to Old English blonden-feax "gray-haired," from blondan, blandan "to mix" (see blend (v.)). According to Littré, the original sense of the French word was "a colour midway between golden and light chestnut," which might account for the notion of "mixed." [But Century Dictionary finds this "hardly probable."]
...
The word was reintroduced into English 17c. from French, and was until recently still felt as French, hence blonde (with French feminine ending) for females. Italian biondo, Spanish blondo, Old Provençal blon are said to be ultimately of Germanic origin.
- etymonline.ccom
blond (n.)
c. 1755 of a type of lace (originally unbleached silk, hence the name); 1822 of persons with blond hair and fair complexions; from blond (adj.).
The probability that Althouse is blonde increases with the blonde population.
Does she or doesn't she? Only her hairdresser knows for sure.
"Ann, if you want to follow the French cheveux is plural. So, blonds."
True. That shows why trying to be French about it is silly. There should be one spelling for the adjective (at least). We never pluralize the adjectives, so why are we adding gender? We don't even understand gender beyond animals, so we don't know how to do it the French way. It's a crazy, invented English/American way to emulate the French.
why are we adding gender = why are we adding gender to adjectives
The gender of hair should be whatever gender we've decided hair is, not the gender of the person who has the hair. To say men have "blond hair" and women have "blonde hair" isn't like other things we do (aside from "brunet hair" and "brunette hair").
And to annoy and sneer at a DMV employee over this matter... well, maybe you were completely charming in presenting it. I don't know.
I looked up "brunet" in the OED and I liked this quote it includes:
2000 N.Y. Times 20 Apr. f6/1 ‘Donatella Versace!’ wailed the young man with the brunet bowl-of-noodles hair.
The OED says:
"Instances of 'brunet' are sometimes (especially in early use) difficult to distinguish from instances of brunette n. and brunette adj.; forms with single t have been taken as belonging at the present entry, forms with double t at brunette n. and adj. It is also unclear whether specific examples of the form brunet denoting or designating a woman or girl reflect the pronunciation of the French feminine brunette, or indicate extended use of the French masculine form to apply to people of either gender."
"at the present entry" means at the entry for "brunet"
At the entry "brunette": "Instances of brunette denoting or designating boys or men with a dark complexion or brown hair reflect application of the French feminine noun and adjective to males. Sense A. 3 appears to reflect a semantic development within English; French brunette does not appear to be attested in this sense until later (end of the 19th cent.)."
“If you're treating it like a French word and using it as an adjective before a noun meaning hair, I think you should leave off the final "e" whether you're talking about men's hair or women's hair. Hair, in French, is masculine.”
But why would we be treating it as a French word in English? The English usage, traditionally, is that unspecified gender is masculine. So you would say:
He has blond hair.
She has blonde hair.
They have blond hair.
Several of the Rockettes have blonde hair.
Rhhardin has (or had?) blonde hair. Althouse started red, lightened and light auburn is considered blonde. It’s Blonde on Blonde.
"It seems more like something that would come up today."
Today one would just transmit the image of the person. No need to call the hair color anything.
I'll tell you who isn't a blonde: Joy Reid. In the latest pic I saw of her she's sporting some blonde hair. Isn't that cultural appropriation, in the latest parlance?
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