femkes_follies: (Default)
[personal profile] femkes_follies
Something that has just recently started to annoy me but has apparently been a bugaboo in the blogosphere for a while is the use of the word "sewist."

To me, it's smacks of a PC need to glorify one's ability to sew. Now, in my world, this is such a commonplace skill that it doesn't bear the need to have a silver-plated pin applied to it. And this terms smacks of a pompous need for recognition - more of the celebration of the everyday that annoys me. Like a 5th grade graduation or a "participation certificate."

I don't really get whats wrong with Seamstress, Tailor, Sempster, or even Sewer - it's usually clear from the context that we do not mean the Cloaca Maxima. (And if you don't get that reference, you're insufficiently well-read to be allowed to make up new words).

The connotation, in my world, is that a "sewist" is a johnny-come-lately who has just figured out how to hem a dishtowel. One to whom making a child's dress out of a pillowcase is both a revelation and an activity requiring step-by-step instructions.

Possibly I put "sewist" and "defeatist" in the same category. "Don't be defeatist, dear. It's terribly Middle Class."
This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting

May 2014

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314 151617
18192021222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios