Ottawa

The gender-specific adjective

Rob Silver considers the curious case of Karen Stintz.

I can find hundreds of examples of female politicians from Hillary Clinton to Sarah Palin and now Karen Stintz being described as “shrill.” Can you find a single example of a male politician being called shrill? First commenter to post an example gets an autographed Tim Powers sweater vest (in baby blue, needless to say).

A Globe commenter claims to have found one example in Germany.

In general, the male equivalent of shrill might be blustery. Or buffoonish. I would wonder if the difference is merely a matter of what octave the nonsense is delivered in.

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