| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
|
5. Gender: Sexist Language and Assumptions
|
| § 7. father |
| People have been using the verb father to mean “to perform the child-rearing functions of a father” since at least 1987. Its use as a verbal noun, as in He devoted the day to fathering, is now quite common and is recorded in such respectable sources as Newsweek, The Washington Post, and The Arizona Republic. But its use as a verb, as in He felt he was fathering as much as he could, is rare. | 1 |
| Like the analogous sense of parent, however, this sense of father is still stigmatized by the Usage Panel: 64 percent of the members find the term unacceptable. This may be because of tension between the child-rearing usage and the word’s older meaning of “to beget.” | 2 |
| More at
parent. | 3 |
|
|
|
| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
