Kim Pearson

© 2003-4. All Rights Reserved

1. One who has contracted spiritual affinity with another by acting as a sponsor at a baptism a. in relation to the person baptized: A godfather or godmother, a sponsor

1. In relation to parents: (One’s) child’s godfather or godmother.
2. In relation to one who acts as godfather or godmother on the same occasion: A fellow-sponsor

1. A familiar acquaintance, friend, chum. Formerly applied to both sexes, now only to women.

1. Applied to a woman’s female friends invited to be present at a birth.

1. A person, mostly a woman, of light and trifling character, esp. one who delights in idle talk; a newsmonger, a tattler.
2. The conversation of such a person; idle talk; trifling or groundless rumor’ tittle-tattle. Also, in a more favorable sense: Easy, unrestrained talk or writing, esp. about persons or social incidents.

1. To be a gossip or sponsor to; to give a name to
2. To act as a gossip, or familiar acquaintance; to take part (in a feast), be a boon-companion; to make oneself at home.

1. 1386: Chaucer: "A womman may in no lasse synne assemblen with hire godsib, than with hire owene flesshy brother"
2. 1568: Tilney: "I cannot but maryatle how a woman of estimation can delite in gadding abrode, to be a gossiper"
3. 1590: Greenwood Collection: "The rashe, vndiscreete, and vnpossible vowe of the saide gossips"
4. 1611: R. Stapylton: "The secret lay not long in the Embers, being gossiped out by a woman"
5. 1649: Evelyn Diary: "The parents being so poore that they had provided no gossips"
6. 1820: W. Irving sketchbook: "A kind of travelling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house
7. 1863: Mrs. C. Clarke: "Some citizens meet in the street and talk, gossip-wise, about the ill-ordering of the government"
8. 1876: Freeman: "The Englishman whose child was held at the font by a Norman gossip…cast aside his own name"

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines gossip as:

1. A person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others
2. a. rumor or report of an intimate nature

b. a chatty talk

c. the subject matter of gossip

Although the common usage of the word gossip today depicts mostly women who engage in talk of an intimate nature about others, the word dates back to 1014 and is even referenced in the Bible. In his epistles to the Romans, Paul branded gossips as people that are full of "wickedness, covetousness and maliciousness." Gossips were believed to have discussed matters that only men had the right to discuss.

By 1362, the word was being used as a term of endearment to describe a friend, someone who may be chosen as a child’s godparent. The word gossip comes from the Old English godsibb, further broken down into god (blood) + sibb (relation). Gossips were looked to as people who could be trusted and applied to both men and women until the 1500s, when it gained negative connotations.

The word gossip applied to both men and women until around 1566 when the negative connotations associated with the word were used directly against women. Even today, the stereotypes that formed centuries ago are prevalent in society. Gossip is often understood as "women’s speech," a view that is completely unfounded by research. Men are rarely referred to as gossips, or their conversations deemed gossip. However, research shows that men have always been just as eager to gossip as women, but the talk they engage in has been labeled "conversation," "exchange of information," or "political talk."

In Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the character Benedick refers to a boy as having "gossip-like humor." He does not directly refer to the boy as a gossip, but referring to his conversation as being gossip-like belittles him by attributing feminine qualities to his speech.

Benedick: Fare you well, boy: you know my mind. I will

leave you now to your gossip-like humour: you break

jests as braggarts do their blades, which God be thanked,

hurt not. My lord, for your many courtesies I think you:

I must discontinue your company: your brother the bastard

is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet

and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I

shall meet: and, til then, peace be with him.

Gossip began to carry negative connotations with it beginning in the Middle Ages with the evolution of midwives. During this time, only women were permitted in birthing rooms because men viewed these rooms as dirty places that would taint men if they went anywhere near them. The belief of the time was that if women thought alone, they thought evil.

For example, in Chapter 3 of The Art of Midwifery: Early Modern Midwives in Europe, gossips are referred to as "speakers of the devil’s workings."

Men had little knowledge of what was talked about in birthing rooms when women were alone together. Fearing the power that women seemed to claim during the deliveries of children, women’s gossip in the birthing rooms was viewed as having unholy qualities and was used as a tool to scapegoat women.

By 1566, as men became more involved with the delivery of babies, the word gossip came to mean a "flighty" woman, meaning a woman who would engage in idle talk. From there, it came to mean the idle talk itself.

Although not carrying as hefty negative connotations with the word as the Middle Ages dictated, Gossip was still used primarily to describe women and now denoted an improper way for a woman to carry conversations with others.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, a great deal of the novel deals with the concept of gossip among primarily the female characters. In this passage, the characters gather together on a porch after the sun has gone down and men are not present. They proceed to share gossip amongst each other while isolating the main character, Janie, when she realized some of the gossip relates directly to her. The passage illustrates the many stereotypes associated with women and gossip.

Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember,

and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is

the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly. So the

beginning of this was a woman and she had come back from

burying the dead…She had come back from the sodden and

bloated; the sudden dead, their eyes flung wide open in judgment.

The people all saw her come because it was sundown. The sun

was gone, but he had left his footprints in the sky. It was time to

hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless,

eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had

occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were

gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords

of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their

mouths. They sat in judgement.

This passage is the one where Janie specifically becomes outraged at the gossip that the women are talking about. Stereotypically, women who gossip are seen as catty, insensitive and envious, which this passage illustrates.

Seeing the woman as she was made them remember the envy they

had stored up from other times. So they chewed up the back parts

of their minds and swallowed with relish. They made burning

statements with questions, and killing tools out of laughs. It was

mass cruelty. A mood come alive. Words walking without

masters; walking altogether like some harmony.

Women who gossip are often viewed in a negative light, but the stereotypes surrounding the word gossip has produced writings of a humorous nature.

From I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Ogden Nash,

There are two kids of people who blow through life like a breeze,

And one kind is gossipers, and the other kind is gossipees,

And they certainly annoy each other,

But they certainly enjoy each other,

But they couldn’t do without each other,

Because gossipers are lost without a thrill and a shock,

Because they like to sit in rocking chairs and gossip and rock and rock and gossip and rock,

And if the gossipees weren’t there to give them a thrill and shock their life would be rocking and no gossip,

Which would be as flat as music without people named Sacha and Yehudi and Ossip,

While on the other hand everybody errs

If they think the gossipees could be happy without the gossipers,

Because you don’t have to study under Freud or Ader or Coue,

To know that it isn’t any fun being a roue if nobody notices that you are a roue,

And indeed connoisseurs agree

That even gossipers don’t know anything about gossip until they have heard one gossipee gossiping about another gossipee.

Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody’s reach,

And it is much more interesting then any other form of speech,

Because suppose you eschew gossip and just say

Mr. Smith is in love with his wife.

Why that disposes the Smiths as a topic of conversation for the rest of their life,

But suppose you say with a smile, that poor little Mrs. Smith thinks her husband is in love with her, he must be very clever,

Why then you can enjoyably talk about the Smiths forever.

So a lot of people go around determined not to hear and not to see and not to speak any evil,

And I say Pooh for them, are you a man or a mouse, are you a woman or a weevil?

And I also say Pooh for sweetness and light,

And if you want to get the most out of life, why they thing to do is to be a gossiper by day and gossipee by night.

Works Referenced

Dunbar, Robin. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press, 1996.

Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Negro

Universities Press, 1969.

Oxford English Dictionary. http://www.oed.com

Marland, Hilary, Ed. The Art of Midwifery. Early Modern Midwives in Europe. New

York: Routledge, 1993.

Merrian Websters Dictionary Online. http://www.m-w.com/home.htm

Online sources:

http://www.wordorigins.org/home.htm

http://www.humanityquest.com/topic/literature/index.asp?theme1=gossip

http://www.helsinki.fi/lehdet/uh/201d.htm

http://home.sprynet.com/~jbrutlag/gossip.htm