2007-02-17

Only a little bit surprising

Long ago, when I read that a Harvard researcher found women chose their mates in a way not consistent with mammals but rather with birds, I realized it was high time we stopped treating women as part of our species but rather as some separate one, in the same way a beaver and a platypus are obviously different species.

Now on the same token, our long-standing homo sapiens always meant "the wise human". Now women can be called many things, but nobody would ever accuse them of being logical. So I was left in a bit of a pickle: I had to find some new classification for woman.

After some contemplation, I came across it: homo acerbia, using the feminine form of "acerbus" (which may not be applicable, my latin isn't particularly strong), the latin term for "bitter" or "harsh". Anyone questioning this term's validity just needs to watch a couple episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Low and behold, a search for "homo acerbus" on Google gives a substantial number of (Polish) websites using the terms "homo acerbus, homo aggressivus". These don't seem to be straight-up Latin ("aggressivus" is not linked to anything in Latin, but is used by the Eco-Philosophy Center for reasons not entirely understood. It also crops up in a scholarly paper about man's flight or fight instincts.

Regardless, its somewhat of a surprise, but this is one meme I've either stumbled across or spontaneously created.