A bad word!

[dubhlinn]

Ye left out the bit about that being no wonder.

Slan,
D.

[emmline]

and your poor poor husband.

I'll send him over for you to console.

And I was just wondering, but perchance, in Norfolk, is Pop pronounced like Toasty?

[scottielvr]

and your poor poor husband.

I'll send him over for you to console.

Ah! Now there's a consolation devoutly to be wished. Married to you, and he's 'poor'? That made me laugh the good laugh, the long laugh.

And I was just wondering, but perchance, in Norfolk, is Pop pronounced like Toasty?

I had precisely the same thought. But then, you know, we 'uns think too much.

[Jack]

Ye left out the bit about that being no wonder.

Slan,
D.

Hmm... I didn't learn it that way but I've heard it that way many times.

Is this better?

SHE WAS A FISHMONGER!

AND SURE, 'TWAS NO WONDER!!

AND SO WERE HER FATHER AND MOTHER BEFORE!!

[Nanohedron]

Domestican

The political party which nominates Martha Stewart.

Domestician

One who cleans the house using a mud-wrap, followed by an herbal steam treatment.

Domestron

A Bill Gates invention which discreetly follows you around picking up socks. Catchphrase: "Keep your house Pentium Clean!"

Keeper of the Hearth

A grizzled, yet strangely wise character whom you must placate to move forward in the new online game sensation Roomscape

Homey.

Spike Lee, duh.

Ha! No sand in your cogs, Em!

My mom has long used the term "fishwife" perjoratively to mean a carping, peevish, fractious woman. The word remains tinged so for me today.

[pop]

and your poor poor husband.

I'll send him over for you to console.

And I was just wondering, but perchance, in Norfolk, is Pop pronounced like Toasty?

There is no use sending him to me ,im in the same boat,i have one just like you i could do with some consoling myself.you americans must have a "support group" for it send him there poor lad.

[pop]

and your poor poor husband.

I'll send him over for you to console.

Ah! Now there's a consolation devoutly to be wished. Married to you, and he's 'poor'? That made me laugh the good laugh, the long laugh.

And I was just wondering, but perchance, in Norfolk, is Pop pronounced like Toasty?

I had precisely the same thought. But then, you know, we 'uns think too much.

Your name made me scottie liver whats that a transplant thing believe me the jocks are the last people to get a liver from

[Montana]

An interesting aside...if you look up the word "wife," you'll find that one of the primary traditional definitions is a woman who works in a particular role (for example, a woman who works in a fish market is a "fishwife"). It's only much later in the word's development that it came to mean the female partner in a marriage.

It was good you brought this up, Red. I was just going to go into a discussion of how, if I were a wife, I'd want to be the wife of my husband rather than the wife of a house.
But now I'm going to have to modify that somewhat.
First, I guess if we run with this, I'd rather be a "homewife" rather than a "housewife" since a home is better than a house.
But if we carry this a little deeper, the fact that a "wife" is a woman who works at a particular role, this says volumes about what it actually takes to be a wife in a marriage. Not that it's all work, but it definitely takes work. Has given me a whole new appreciation of the word.

And it's not Scottie "Liver" - it's Scottie Louver. Black, furry window dressings.

[Nanohedron]

I thought it was "Scottie Laver". Y'know, like seaweed from north of Hadrian's Wall.

[scottielvr]

It was bound to happen: You guys have forced my paw. I'm outed. Hah! You weren't even close, any of you. It's not about livers or louvers (though I really like that one, and it could well become part of the plan), or lavers. Silly bipeds, you had no idea how many letters were being concealed. It's "Lawgiver." Scottie Lawgiver. World domination by Scottish terriers, that's what I'm talking about. Resistance is futile.

[Flyingcursor]

It was bound to happen: You guys have forced my paw. I'm outed. Hah! You weren't even close, any of you. It's not about livers or louvers (though I really like that one, and it could well become part of the plan), or lavers. Silly bipeds, you had no idea how many letters were being concealed. It's "Lawgiver." Scottie Lawgiver. World domination by Scottish terriers, that's what I'm talking about. Resistance is futile.

I knew it would happen sooner or later.

[scottielvr]

I knew it would happen sooner or later.

Excellent. And so it begins. One down, 6,603,562,976 to go. No, wait, it's 6,603,562,992...eek! 6,603,563,004!

Dang. This is gonna be harder than I thought.

[lilymaid]

I'm a housewife, currently, because I am utterly domesticly impaired and I feel to be an adequate partner for my spouse I ought to be as capable around the house as he is. I don't mind the term. I don't mind the term househusband either. It's how my spouse describes his career ambitions.

I think contemporary feminism, in its eagerness to make
women competitive with men in the marketplace, tended
to demean 'women's work,' and in that way also
demeaned women. Traditional roles for women,
while plainly they shouldn't be a straight jacket,
have actually been satisfying to women, and
often empowered them.

The way I see it is someone has to scrub the toilet. I don't see what's so empowering about it.

Maybe I'm deathly selfish but I have decided I most certainly have no intention of spending the rest of my life mending someone else's socks. Being financially dependant on a man is not an idea I'm too fond of, either.

There's nothing wrong with "women's work". The problem is when I work outside of the home it is a much more independent self-asserting thing than when I'm at home mending clothes. Being a homemaker means you get to work in the background. It's not for you. It's for someone else. Your work, your entire identity, is absorbed by your family life. You are a wife, a mother. You're not a wife and a saleslady, or a mother and a nurse. You are defined entirely by your relationship to another person.

I think it's often a much healthier balance if a lady works more outside the home than in. Ideally, I'd come home from work and make a nice pot of soup and my husband would come home from work and work on some bookshelves.

Homemaking may be well and good for some people, but I really don't think most women would choose it if it weren't for the combination of pressure from spouses and people around you (I've been told my views made me a bad Christian, for instance.), being brainwashed by toy irons and baby dolls as a child, and the simple fact that the woman may well be the only person available to tend the household.

In Sri Lanka and India I knew women who had careers
outside the home, but put definite limits on them,
so that their role as housewife and mother came first.
Where family comes first, women tend to be empowered,
because they are central to family.

I it's more that menfolk don't pull their weight around the house. For instance, I knew a lady who was financially supporting her child and unemployed husband as well as going to school. Upon arriving home after both a full day's work and classes, her lovely spouse asked her what she meant to fix for dinner.

Traditional ideas about gender roles, about women being more nurturing and naturally inclined to certain things, are often just a way for men to avoid doing something they don't wish to do. It's a more insidious way of forcing a woman into a role because you begin by telling her how capable she is.

[Martin Milner]

I think it's more that SOME menfolk don't pull their weight around the house. For instance, I knew a lady who was financially supporting her child and unemployed husband as well as going to school. Upon arriving home after both a full day's work and classes, her lovely spouse asked her what she meant to fix for dinner.

With my "little" addition I'd agree with you, but please don't tar all men with the same brush.

[Tyler]

I think it's more that SOME menfolk don't pull their weight around the house. For instance, I knew a lady who was financially supporting her child and unemployed husband as well as going to school. Upon arriving home after both a full day's work and classes, her lovely spouse asked her what she meant to fix for dinner.

With my "little" addition I'd agree with you, but please don't tar all men with the same brush.

Yes indeed.
Especially those men (ahem) who work their asses clean off (need I roll out my schedule again? someone else tell her) both at work and at home so that our wives can feel empowered in whatever they choose to do.
For one, my wife has expressed to me her desire to stay home with my daughter and care for things in and about the home. Unfortunately that's not possible for us at the present time.