Lauren's wrote: I guess that cute-sy feminizing ending would be necessary, IF the definition of 'FAN' was: "a Male that is an avid follower of an artform or artist..." but I don't see that in any of the dictionaries I have looked in. Sometimes the habit of adding gender denoting endings to words aids in the destruction of the language, along with peoples hypersensitivity to real words that have been taken on in slang to represent acts or anatomical parts of humans, or used to demean others, which just won't do, words such as Dick, Cock, Ass, Uranus, (myanus), Dickie, Cougar, Hamster, Chick, his/her, dumb, Blind, Fat, Short, Crap, Retarded....... Let's all try to reinstate the beautiful colour of the english language, and restore it to the level it used to be. none of this word 'LITE' crap -------------------------------------------- Laurens, There is no destruction of the English language going on here. Adding "ette" is cute and funny not demeaning. Language is a way of communicating. Every person, group, village, country, planet has their own ways of using language. The beautiful thing about language is its diversity. There is no right or wrong. The English language we use today is nothing like the original English language and I am glad. But why has it changed? Well, mainly because people aren't all the same. We each use language in a very personal way. The way I say something and you say something is very different. To say someone is using their language wrong is just ricockulous. <(Note: funny use of English language) But all this talk does remind me of a song by "The Normal" http://homepage.mac.com/jonathankamm/Warm-Leatherette.mp3 , Jonathan