Englishmen.

A woman! Why? Boys don't use the word "scatty", especially when they're talking about boys. Secondly, there's that rather vague back-hander: one Englishman "may be" worth etc etc. Most Englishmen assume they're in the premiere league. It wouldn't occur to them that a legion of Romans might be a tad more exciting!

A new offering has arrived. Thanks to everyone who's got involved so far. Here it is:

There’s an old saying, what is it now? Revenge is a dish best served cold. So I waited. Bided my time. Made a few inquiries. Poked around a bit. What I found out surprised even me. After all that bastard had done to me I hadn’t reckoned on this. Patience, not one of my strengths I’m afraid – tend to charge in and do the business. But I learnt patience the hard way, and in the end it was well worth the wait. I found out he’d been a bit of a naughty boy. Had a conviction for arson – years ago it was – he was only a kid then. Made a plan – planted a petrol can or two, got him out the way. Of course the divorce helped – it had been pretty bitter and she’d got the lot, so when the house went up he was the prime suspect. It’s been six years now, and he’s due out next Tuesday. Hope to God he never cottons on it was me.

After the second line, I could almost hear the gravelly male gumshoe narrative in my head.

If it's not written by a male of the species, I'll eat my hat!

'They simply go soppy and scatty about the very idea of any matter of the heart'

No Tybalt!

I have to come clean and admit,that piece was all me!... It was pure 100% male I am afraid!

Sorry to disappoint you all.

Andrew )

I'd have to agree with Bartender. Abrupt and sounds pretty male to me... but then I was wrong the last time!

Sorry Bluesky! My mistake.

Short sentences, violence just off-screen. Mmm, sounds like a man to me too...

This sounds like a female to me. I think men would not usually use the phrase 'naughty boy'.

Women can certainly be more ruthless in revenge than men.

Andrew )

my thoughts were that it was a woman, but I am so rubbish at this game because I can never answer why I thought what I thought. I'll see if I can make some sense of it this time.

Hopelessly feeble thoughts I had, like the fact that 'revenge' tends to be a thing attributed to women, the use of the words 'cottons on' sounds more female than male.
What is just as well is that there are only two genders, so it's only 50/50 that we'd get it wrong.

funny - like you Becca, my feeling was that the last sentence was distinctly female - somehow too polite for what's required. But then, what do I know?

I read this when it was first posted and thought the phrase

'Revenge is a dish best served cold'

had mysterioulsy reappeared as it is quite an old fashioned
phrase and one I would not normally think was in use today
then I happened to have the Television on and lo an advert for
God knows what with the self same phrase, thus through no
reasoned logic whatsoever I have decided my inital reaction
was/is correct and that he latest piece was written by one of
our female writers.

Look what I found! ... I quote 'A new computer program can tell whether a book was written by a man or a woman. The simple scan of key words and syntax is around 80% accurate on both fiction and non-fiction.

The program's success seems to confirm the stereotypical perception of differences in male and female language use. Crudely put, men talk more about objects, and women more about relationships.

Female writers use more pronouns (I, you, she, their, myself), say the program's developers, Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and colleagues. Males prefer words that identify or determine nouns (a, the, that) and words that quantify them (one, two, more).'

... end quote
(there was more on this)

So now all we have to do is to ask the computer!

Andrew )
ps this was my reference but it is only available if you are signed up to the magazine web site 'Nature'
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030714/030714-13.html

Andrew

I think it was a comment about this puter programme that started this forum off in the first place now that could alos be a coincidence......

take care

david

ps didnt it suggest though that some of Shakespeare was written by a female?

Oh sorry David, I had not realised that.
Well, things do go round in circles don't they?
Andrew )