The Naming Of The Shrew

Here’s a phrase you’ll likely never hear: “You know, that guy can be a real shrew.”

Shrew, as defined by Webster, refers to “any number of small, slender mouse-like insectivore mammals with soft fur and a long, pointed snout.”

But there’s a second definition: The word is often used to mean “a scolding, evil-tempered woman.”

So, how did the word for a specific furry mammal become a pejorative term for women in general? Interesting question, one that is addressed by Jane Mills, author of “Womanwords: A Dictionary of Words About Women.”

According to Mills, as early as 1545, some Europeans considered the shrew “a venomous animal empowered to cause paralysis.” The application to women came through biblical references.

Mills quotes Lucy de Bruyn, author of “Women and the devil in Sixteenth-Century Literature,” as her source: “Ever since strife came into the world by sin, the question of equality of the sexes has been a serious problem. For woman, who had disobeyed God himself, surrender to her husband became at times most difficult. A world literature sprang up in which her ‘wayward, shrew-shaken’ disposition was emphasized.”

Just like a shrew, isn’t it, to question being tamed?

Quote of the fortnight: According to Joseph Nowinski, author of “Hungry Hearts,” there is a way for men to cure themselves of emotional pain. It just isn’t necessarily easy.

“Recovery from insecurity and recovery from addiction both begin when a man stops avoiding looking at his own wounds,” Nowinski wrote, “when he stops trying to hide behind one obsession or another, and when he turns and faces his insecurity and isolation.”

The same, of course, would seem to hold true for women as well.

More on Dad: If you read the touching reminiscence of Anatole Broyard that ran in this space two weeks ago, you might have thought that author Jon Winokur included only painful memories in his book “Fathers.”

Not true. Take this story that Jack Floyd tells of his father, the bank robber Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd.

“When I was around 7 or 8, we went fishing and couldn’t catch anything, so Dad took out his machine gun and said, ‘You know what? We’ll shoot ‘em.’ He let me pull the trigger. ‘Well, we still didn’t get any,’ Dad said afterward. ‘But we scared the hell out of ‘em.”’

Looking for love: Spokesman-Review columnist Michael Gurian, whose work in men’s and gender issues has won him a national following, will read from his latest book, “Love’s Journey,” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at Auntie’s Bookstore. In “Love’s Journey,” Gurian attempts to reinvent the very notion of the most powerful of emotions. He does so by drawing on mythical and ancient religious traditions.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Drawing