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Mind your language

Mind your language: From body fluids to ‘gender fluid’

The weird metaphor lurking in a suddenly popular term

2 April 2016

9:00 AM

2 April 2016

9:00 AM

Benjamin Franklin thought that an excess of electric fluid gave rise to positive electricity, and a deficiency of the fluid to negative electricity. ‘New flannel, if dry and warm, will draw the electric fluid from non-electrics.’ By an electric he meant substances such as glass, and indeed the air. I’m not sure how much we think of electricity as a fluid today.

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