When it comes to character defects in other people--a topic I never tire of--I often wonder: am I a practitioner of sexist language?
A woman may be selfish and rude, but I wouldn't refer to her as a "jerk." Men are jerks, women are---I don't know. I'm not saying that some women do not qualify in every way for the accolade; I just don't see the word as linguistically correct.
My limits of propriety, however were tested last weekend, as I have observed in this week's Argus/Dispatch column about the female jerk who almost killed me on Easter morning.
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