Jenni Nuttall

Mar 27, 2024 | lrb.co.uk | Jenni Nuttall |Mary Wellesley

When​ my daughter began to talk about her body and the bodies of others, I wondered what word we should use for female genitals. I had been taught the term ‘front-bottom’ as a child. Very little needs to be said here about how stupid this is. My husband and I opted instead for ‘vulva’. It’s functional, but it does sound strange in certain contexts. My daughter recently asked me if the Beatrix Potter frog, Jeremy Fisher, had a tail or a bottom. I wasn’t sure and opted for bottom.

Mar 19, 2024 | devicedaily.com | Viorica Marian |Valerie Fridland |Jenni Nuttall |John Sargent

Does it matter which language you speak? Words have the power to transform our lives By Next Big Idea Club February 08, 2024English has only one word for love, but other languages have many. Greek, for example, has seven—eros for romantic, passionate love, philia for intimate friendship, agape for universal love, and so on.

Sep 1, 2023 | lmtonline.com | Jenni Nuttall |Lisa Davis

Viking. 292 pp. $29 - - - What do you know about "vagina"? No, not the body part - the word itself. Having read Jenni Nuttall's "Mother Tongue: The Surprising History of Women's Words," I now know quite a bit.

Aug 31, 2023 | damemagazine.com | Jenni Nuttall

Oxford University medievalist Jenni Nuttall reveals centuries of women's rebellion against patriarchal strictures as reflected in the evolution of our language, in this fascinating excerpt from MOTHER TONGUE. This article was made possible because of the generous support of DAME members. We urgently need your help to keep publishing. Will you contribute just $5 a month to support our journalism? In language at least, we never really escape from girlhood.

Aug 29, 2023 | lithub.com | Jenni Nuttall

Why do our modern words for periods have to be so limited and unappealing? We’re caught between the clinically scientific and the Gothic horror of slang (Code Red, on the rag), with not much more than period left in the middle. Yet it wasn’t always this way. Monthly bleeds had other names for many centuries before the word period appeared on the scene.