453: Girl Mar 5, 2016

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'Girl' used to mean just mean, small child, whether boy or girl, from the time of Old English through Modern English. This is not like the way that Romance languages lump the sense of "girls and boys" or also just "boys" into the masculine forms, but simply the meaning of one word, similar to the way that 'man' meant–in Old English–'human', separate from the other words for 'man' and 'woman', which you can see more about here.

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