This essay is a historical-linguistic examination of sexual epithets for women. Women authors of drama and fiction were able to change the meanings of two words, jilt and slut, in just eighty years. This article nuances literary-critical understanding of linguistics, which has too often meant wholesale adoption of the arbitrary nature of the signifier, without reasoned consideration of sound symbolism. It also seeks to broaden the definition of women's literary achievement by including anonymous texts and popular works like canting dictionaries as a viable part of the literary record.
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Bonnie A.B. Blackwell (2004) studied this question.