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Re: On Beauty IQ right now, what does the host in the black dress have on her face that so radiant?


@RinaRina wrote:

@suzyQ3 wrote:

@anjazw wrote:

Sorry, I should have said hostess.

 


@anjazw, no, "host" is not only acceptable but preferred now. :-) So you were fine.


 

Hahaha!  I'm stuck in the "dark ages".  I still prefer "hostess".

I can't stand the gender neutral ******.

 


The old suffixes like "esse" or "ette" that were commonly added to the root word are diminutives. That means the they are lesser or smaller than the root word.

 

So a man was worthy of being a host, for example, but a woman was a smaller, less important one; hence, a "hostess."

 

People today generally think that a man and a woman are equally qualified, so the diminutive forms have gone out of style. In fact, they were disapproved even in some fairly older style books.


~Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle~ Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland