Home » Gender and Language » Female Quiz Master

Female Quiz Master

Play episode

Is master a gender-neutral title? James from Seattle, Washington, hosts a local pub quiz night, where he’s known as the Quizmaster. But, he wonders, would it be appropriate to call a woman a Quizmaster? Of course! Many titles, like Postmaster or even actor, have come to be gender-neutral. We wouldn’t say Quizmistress because mistress has taken on a specific connotation–namely, the female lover of a married man. For more on gender and language, Grant recommends University of Michigan professor Ann Kurzan’s book Gender Shifts in the History of English. This is part of a complete episode.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

More from this show

A Puzzle for the -Ages

People are forever saying that we live in one age or another, such as the Space Age or the Internet Age, which inspired Quiz Guy John Chaneski to create a Puzzle for the Ages. Imagine a world where people misunderstand words that end in -age, so...

Recent posts

Gender and Language