<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Aussie Life

Aussie Language

22 May 2021

9:00 AM

22 May 2021

9:00 AM

The Australian Breastfeeding Association has declared the word ‘mother’ to be ‘non-inclusive’. Does this make linguistic sense? Not for a moment. Most words are ‘non-inclusive’ — it’s how language works. There are (probably, we don’t know for sure) around a million words in the English language — and the vast majority of them work by being ‘non-inclusive’.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER

You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.


Comments

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close