Sunday Rest: virago. Word Not To Use Today.

I daren't use this word. It's too much of a risk.

There have been so many campaigns against using insulting words to describe woman - words such as scold or shrew (and ruder things) - and there's no doubt that virago is certainly insulting, meaning as it does a loud and violently ill-tempered woman.

But still, when you look at the word's origin...

...hm, perhaps it might be possible, after all. 

After all, it's not only women it's insulting.

Sunday Rest: virago. This word has been around in English for about a thousand years. Before that it came from Latin, where it meant a manlike young woman, from the word vir, man.

I think that makes it a dual-sex insult...

..not that I'm saying there are only two sexes...

...I think I'd better keep quiet, now.