Women and men speak different languages

MY SPORTS CAR IS NOT FUCHSIA

By Nury Vittachi

WOMEN IN ASIA have smaller vocabularies than men but talk more, scientists have discovered. Yet females have a much larger choice of words in certain areas, such as in the description of colours, boffins say.

Well, hel-lo, scientists. Welcome to Planet Earth.

Honestly, you have to feel sorry for these people. They spend years finding out what the rest of us already know.

I mean, take the business about colours.  A friend of mine decided to buy a sports car recently. “I think I’ll get a red one,” he said.

“But what shade of red?” his wife asked. “Blush? Brick? Cerise? Fuchsia? Cherry? Russet? Claret? Crimson? Salmon? Ruby? Scarlet? Vermilion?”

We could hear her continuing to identify sub-categories of red as we left the flat and travelled 20 floors down in the elevator.

These discoveries appeared after a team of male scientists spent months analyzing speech patterns. (It apparently never occurred to them to use the time-saving but rather risky technique of Talking to a Woman). It’s a subject I’ve discussed before, but let’s revisit the main findings.

Discovery one: Men and women use entirely different words to describe the same thing.

Example: words for the lower midriff.

If you are a woman, you have an “abdomen” or a “tummy”.

If you are a man, you have a “belly” or a “gut”.

To test this hypothesis, I re-watched my entire library of Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. Amazing to relate, Arnie never once said: “Damn. They got me in the abdomen.” Or “He’s still alive—I feel it in my tum-tum.”

The aerobics teacher on my wife’s exercise videos spoke endlessly about “abdominal scrunches” but never once said, “Belly in. Belly out. C’mon, you can do it. Let me see you thrust those bellies around.”

Discovery two: Girls are better are forming complex sentences than boys.

                I observed a little girl making a chocolate spread sandwich and emerging from the kitchen to make the following speech: “Mummy sayth I’m a vewy good lickle girl ‘cos I know how to make myself a samwidge and I know how to clean up the kitchen afterwardth and I’m nearly five and a half and this is my dolly who is called Emma and she’s gonna help me eat the samwidge.”

                Before she had finished speaking, the sandwich in question had been summarily inhaled by a small boy belonging to a visitor. The only sounds he had made during his visit were preternaturally loud expulsions of air from various locations on his person.

Discovery three: Men’s brains are wired for systematic recall (that means they can remember lists of facts) while women’s are wired for empathetic recall (that means they can remember periods of heightened emotion).

                Somehow, Mother Nature knew that males would bond by swapping statistics about sports while females would exchange opinions about relationships.

                Guys, try starting a conversation with “Let’s talk about our feelings” and watch your buddies fight to abandon the scene. I don’t need scientists to tell me this. I have a gut feeling about it.

And I don’t mean a tum-tum feeling.

**

Tomorrow: The revolutionary new form of English Asians use

Comments

[Lilia]

Congrats on the new column, and the website is MEGA. I think this is going to be hufge and I will put on my thinking cap and think of some funnystuff for you

[Darwin]

I use the word 'stomach' as opposed to 'tum-tum' OR 'belly/gut'. Does that make me a boy or a girl, I wonder!

[Dave the Rave]

Interesting. I know a couple of lezzers, and the pretty one definitely talks girlie while the shorthaired one talks in abrupt male language. But why do women in Asia have smaller vocabs? I;m sure I;ve seen data in the west which says that women have bigger vocabs. I have some male friends with very small vocabularies indeed, and besides, the phrase "strong silent type' is so stronlgy associated with the male sex

[Dave the Rave]

Stomach is a blunt, ugly word so you are a guy (or a tomboy) darwin

[Stevedore]

rubbish, darwin a girl pretending tobe a boy. look, her name is male (Darwin)but the phrases she uses "boy or girl" gives it away. Also the exclamation mark and the carefullness of the use of the quotation marks etc, I would bet two beers that she is female, how about it Darwin

[Instituion]

The theory goes that Asian women have a smaller vocabulary than Western women because your vocabulary grows if you go out to work. It gets filled with jargon and specialist terms. In Asia, there are significantly fewer working women, thus their scores are lower.

[Pete]

I see you're covering some old ground Nury -- I know this is a topic you've covered a few times. I guess it makes sense to go with some sure-fire topics of wide interest. But I hope you'll cultivate a new network of people and get some fresh stuff going. Thegreat thing about your columns int he past was that they had such a wide network of contributors. I hope the same is true of this new column.
best wishes and good luck
Pete

[Luly J]

welcome back mr jam!!

[Ben]

Congratulations on the new column. I picked up a copy of the Standard today and was quite delighted to read a story on the Asian dialect that I have so often heard spoken here.

I am looking forward to reading more.

[Nury]

Thanks for the kind words Ben -- and let me return the compliment: I've just had a look at your blog, and it's great fun: http://www.bennykeefe.blogspot.com/

[Joyce]

Most of Asian women do work now, especially those in Hong Kong and Singapore. Culture is part of the reasons to decide the way how Asian women talk.

[Dave the rave]

Joyce is right, besides Noam Chomsky said that women have more verbal skills in every society every measured. i mean, think about it, women always have this reputation for being the talking (nagging) ones while men are the ones who won;t talk abotu their feelsing etc.
when the time for comes for men and women to have a level playing field, then women will be in charge, espcially as we are moving towards an knowledge based society where brawn is not needed. so I guess we "chaps" may well have had our day....

[Darwin]

Dave - 'Stomach' might be a blunt/ugly word but it's a lot more anatomically correct than tum-tum wouldn't you say? :)

Stevedore - Hah, does that mean *I* actually owe you two virtual beers then?

[Lesley]

Nury (sigh, pause) darling...

I feel I have to be the one to say it - I've thought about it and I just have to!

Your column yesterday was number one on my list of stuff I hate!

I am on a mission to stop this degrading and, yes, acceptable sexism with men as the target so just STOP IT!

I am attaching a link to my blog which addresses this subject fully.

http://lesleycroftblog.typepad.com/expat_lady/2007/01/index.html

Consider yourself told off but I still love you.

Lesley

[Sarah L.]

Hmmmm interesting blog, Lesley. Sounds to me that you have been blessed with a man who does talk about his feelings and dress carefully and so on and yet is not gay. Where did you find him? any more like him around? I think Nuri;s point is that most men are not like that!! Unfortunately yours is not as common as you think, or perhaps you move in more sophisticated sensitive circles

[Lesley]

The point is that it's all too easy to generalize. I am heartily sick of listening to women sitting around slagging off their husbands and men as a whole. And I just don't agree with any statement that starts with MOST ie most men are..., most asians are..., most jews are... or the worst one 'most women are...! We are all accutely aware of using rasist and sexist language and know how damaging it can be but it just spouts out of MOST(eeek what am I saying) females.