Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Why I Dislike “Ultra Woman"

No, I have nothing against Lois’ alter ego. What I dislike is her name. It has grated on me from the first time I heard it, but I never really bothered to think very much about it before today. Although I am going to use “Ultra Woman” as a spring board for discussion, I am posting this in the off-topic section of the MB because my post will only relate to the show tangentially.

I am among the many who have enjoyed Ann’s posts on astronomy, so I decided to write a disquisition on linguistics. My credentials: I have a doctorate in linguistics, with specializations in sociolinguistics and language pedagogy. I have, however, been out of the field for over a decade.

Today, I would like to venture primarily into morphology, the branch of linguistics which discusses how words are assembled. Words are composed of one or more “morphemes”. A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a language. Consider, for example, the word “cats”. It is a single word composed of two morphemes; the first morpheme meaning, roughly, “feline” and the second morpheme being a plural marker. “Cat” is a free morpheme – it can stand as a word in its own right. This contrasts with the plural marker “s” which is a bound morpheme. It cannot stand as a word in its own right; it must be attached to another morpheme in order to form a word.

Keep in mind that the only static languages are dead ones. Morphemes which once were bound can become free, and vice versa. To take a very recent example, “dis” used to be a bound morpheme. But in some lects (See footnote), at least, it can now stand on its own as a verb meaning to show someone disrespect. It is my understanding that this change originated in the lect which, when I was in grad school, linguists referred to as “Black English Vernacular,” or BEV. (I don’t know whether political correctness has resulted in a different term being used by current linguists – as I wrote above, I’ve been out of the field for over a decade.) “Dis” as a free morpheme has spread to be understood, and sometimes used, in other lects within the United States. (I don’t know how widespread it has become – I would love to hear from people outside the U.S. – Has “dis” as a free morpheme spread to you?)

Morpheme boundaries can also change over time in a process called “juncture loss”. Historically, the phrases “an uncle,” “a newt,” and “an apron” would have been rendered as “a nuncle,” “an ewt,” and “a napron”. These changes may not be apparent in the spoken versions of the two-word phrases, but they become obvious even in spoken language when one inserts another word between the article and the noun; e.g. “a favourite (n)uncle,” “a pet (n)ewt,” “a gaudy (n)apron”. Incidentally, J.R.R. Tolkien undoubtedly knew of this when he used the phrase “my nuncle Tim” in one of his poems. (http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/j__r__r__tolkien/poems/1878)

So, back to “Ultra Woman”. Is “Ultra” a bound or a free morpheme? While it is true that the space between it and “Woman” could present an argument in favour of it being a free morpheme, it is only a weak one. Written word boundaries do not always correspond to linguistic ones. To see this, one need only consider the morpheme pairs which may be written with a space, a hyphen, or directly connected as compound words in writing; e.g., “no one” vs. “no-one,” “all right” vs. “alright”, or “ultra liberal” vs. “ultra-liberal”.

One test used to see whether a morpheme is bound or free is to see whether it can be the answer to an ordinary (i.e., non meta-linguistic) question. This would only work for words in certain syntactic categories. “Super” is a free morpheme. It can stand alone as the answer to, “How do you feel?” “Ultra,” too, can stand on its own as the answer to “How conservative is he?”

Now a brief excursion into syntax – how sentences are constructed. I’ll get into far more details on syntax in another post, should there be interest. Right now, I’ll just touch on the fact that words can be put together in certain ways to make phrases. For example, “very” can be used to modify adverbs (“very quickly”) or adjectives (“very big”) but not nouns (*“very dog” - An asterisk is used in linguistics to precede ungrammatical phrases or sentences.)

So where does my problem with “Ultra Woman” come from? “Ultra” is like “very” – it can be used to modify adjectives or adverbs, but not nouns. For example, “ultra violent” is a perfectly good English phrase, but *“ultra violence” is not. Some other examples:

“Ultra professorial”

“Ultra soft” (A phrase I’ve heard used in advertisements)

“Ultra clean” (This example comes straight from a setting on my laundry machine)

“Ultra feminine”

“Ultra quickly”

“Ultra quietly”

“Ultra gently”

But all of the following are ungrammatical:

*”Ultra professor”

*”Ultra softness”

*”Ultra cleanliness”

And now, my difficulty with *”Ultra Woman” should be evident. “Ultra feminine woman,” while lacking zing, would use “ultra” in a manner consistent with general usage. *“Ultra Woman,” however, violates such usage. Hence the reason I find the phrase so irritating. (Note that when I label it “irritating,” I have my “native speaker of English” hat on; not my “linguist” hat. Linguists are descriptivists, not presciptivists. I’ll expand upon that in another post, should this post generate any interest.)

Thank you for sticking with me on my ramble through a small corner of linguistics.

Joy,
Lynn

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Footnote: A “lect” is the way an individual or a group of individuals speaks. If this post generates enough interest, I will discuss different types of lects in another post.

I've got interest, and would like to hear more!

Agree with you on "Ultra Woman" but never knew why until now. It's little things like that that make fics go. As Mark Twain said, "The difference between the word that is right and the word that is almost right is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."

Very interesting, Lynn, and you are quite right. The problem for ABC was almost certainly that almost all even moderately good names for a Super-Lois (and of course they couldn't call her Super-Lois!!!) were already taken. All the good names, by the way: there certainly aren't many of them. Remember that Lois's "super personality name" must sound okay when paired with Superman. You couldn't call her "Flying Woman", for example, because that sounds bad when paired with Superman: Superman and Flying Woman. What, he is super and she is flying? Hey, he is flying too, and she has all his superpowers! Doesn't it sound weird to single out one of Clark's super-abilities and name superpowered Lois after that one ability? That kind of thing doesn't work, in my opinion.

Also, and with apologies to Corrina, what if we were to borrow her "pen name" for a moment and call superpowered Lois "Female Hawk"? Then superpowered Clark and Lois would be Superman and Female Hawk together. But that also sounds really weird. Why is he a man and she a hawk?

All names that don't contain the word "woman" (or possibly "girl") sound weird when paired with "Superman". Therefore, we need some form of "intensifier" that resembles the word "super" for Lois, so that we can use that intensifier plus the word "woman" for her.

The best intensifier would be plain old "super", of course. That way superpowered Clark and Lois would have been Superman and Superwoman, pure and simple. But the name "Superwoman" was already taken. This is what Wikipedia says about it:

"Superwoman" sounds too much like "Supergirl" for ABC to be allowed to use "Superwoman" for Lois wearing a pink dress when DC already owned "Supergirl" for a girl who is not Lois Lane at all.



Supergirl, Superman's cousin Kara from Krypton, in a comic book from 1959 or the early sixties. Note that she has apparently been cleaning Superman's Arctic Fortress, since that sort of thing is no job for a man!

Supergirl became quite popular. When I googled "Superwoman", I found several pictures of DC's Supergirl. I can't help showing you this picture of "Superman" and "Superwoman":



What other intensifiers can be used with "woman" to make a name that goes with "Superman"? What about Amazing Woman"? Unfortunately that name was taken, too:



This is a really obscure DC Comics heroine, Erik/Erika Storn (yes, because she is sometimes a man and sometimes a woman). DC has already killed her off, but she is still their property, so ABC couldn't use her name.

So I googled "Fantastic Woman", but I got some really, truly weird images that I don't want to post here. Apparently ABC didn't like the name either. They also must have turned down "Marvellous Woman", because that also sounds corny, and DC wouldn't have wanted ABC to use a name for Lois that might remind those who watched the show of DC's rival, Marvel Comics.

And that, I guess, is the reason why they ended up with Ultra Woman.

Ann

I love this post. Being a linguistics student myself, I'm definitely interested in hearing more! (Incidentally, my major interests are also in sociolinguistics and pedagogy; right now, I'm planning to continue my studies in grad school and focus on sociolinguistics, but I'm also very interested in teaching ESL at some point.)

I've never thought of "ultra woman" that way; your post was very interesting to read. Just to be the devil's advocate, though, since you just said linguists are descriptivists, I'd like to propose that this usage is not entirely ungrammatical.

First, to add to your awesome post: prescriptivism and descriptivism are two different ways of looking at language. Prescriptivists maintain that language must adhere to rigid rules of grammar and syntax, and prescribe what it should be. Descriptivists accept that language is alive, evolving and changing every day, and simply describe it as they study it.

I was a bit of a prescriptivist before I started studying linguistics... but fortunately I had a great professor who quickly convinced me that language is just about one of the most impossible things in existance to pin down.

Back to "ultra"... According to the Oxford English Dictionary online edition (I'm not sure if you have access to it, though - I logged in through my university), ultra originated as a prefix, which did precede nouns - however, it didn't have the same meaning as ultra in "ultra woman". I'm assuming it was meant to be a rough parallel of "super man".

From the OED: The OED had separate entries for "ultra-" as a prefix and "ultra" as a free morpheme. The etymology entry for the free morpheme says, "Independent use of ULTRA-, orig. as an abbreviation of F[rench] ultra-royaliste": also preceding a noun.

And this is part of the given definition:

Being classified as an adjective in itself implies that it modifies nouns, and the third entry fits "Ultra Woman" perfectly.

Forgetting the OED, though, (since citing it isn't very descriptivist of me ) consider the following sentences:

(a) "My sweater is ultra-clean, thanks to Super Detergent."

(b) "I achieved ultra-cleanliness by washing my sweater with Super Detergent."

The second sentence looks and sounds grammatically correct to me. At least, nothing in it stands out as erroneous to me. (I should say that English is not my native language, though.)

I will concede, though, that "ultra professor" sounds wrong.

Here's hoping I didn't forget everything I learned in the three months I've had off school, and just say something incredibly wrong. XD

Julie

I'm afraid that that's one you've probably lost - it's been in English usage for almost half a century, since its use in Anthony Burgess' novel "A Clockwork Orange" and the subsequent film. I'd be surprised if the usage isn't in the full OED by now, despite its flaws.

I always found the name "ultra woman" to be very irritating also, but never understood why.

Thanks for letting that "not understanding" make sense now!

I would also be very (or should that now be "ultra" ) interested in more of these "language" lessons

really interesting stuff - I too have never been crazy about the name "Ultrawoman" . But now I'm not going to be able to let the question go to-day - what should she have been called instead?

c.

Here's a tangent. Is Lois' alter ego one word or two?

The DVD title lists her name as two words ("Ultra Woman"), all caps. That's also how the title appears in the episode itself. (That's the scene where Lois has just pulled an eight-foot iron gate off its hinges and is standing there holding it with a worried look on her face.)

But a number of authors have written it as one word ("Ultrawoman"), presumably because Clark's alter ego is a one-word name. And I've not run across any discussion of this before. It makes me wonder which one is right - or if it really matters.

But back to the actual thread.

I think that one of the reasons "Ultra Woman" doesn't flow as well off the tongue as does "Superman" is cultural. We in the Western world have been exposed to this mythical hero for all of our lives, and the name Superman has become part and parcel of our daily lives. The suit, the attitude, the "Look up in the sky!" pronouncement, all of it has been absorbed into our lives. We see, we hear, we know who he is.

Not so Ultra Woman. She's a construct from the TV show to advance the romance between Clark and Lois. Having the responsibilities of Superman for a few days gave Lois a taste of what Clark goes through all the time, and it enabled her to understand him so much better.

But the character vanished after one episode and did not return. She has no comic titles dedicated to her adventures, no TV show, no marketing muscle behind her legend, no identifying tag line, nothing. We haven't made her part of our culture like we have Superman.

So if "Ultra Woman" sounds funky to you, it's natural. Not only are there real language problems with the name, it's not a part of our culture, and therefore strange to us. And it will probably remain strange to us no matter how many words we use to spell it.

Is it just me, or is "Superwoman" stuffing her briefs in that picture? :p

@ Sue - Dude, I was thinking the SAME thing!

@ Lynn - I also find this discussion interesting so please do post more!

@ Terry - I think we should come up w/ another name for Ultra Woman. Let the games begin!

Wow! I hadn’t dreamed that this discussion would be so lively. Thank you all for responding.

Iolanthe, Julie S actually included a nice description of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism in her post. (Thanks, Julie!) Linguists, when acting in their professional capacities, attempt to describe the language as it is actually used, without imposing any value judgments. For example, a linguist, functioning as such, might note the usage of “between you and I” vs. “between you and me” and might try to determine who would say which and under what circumstances. If they are sociolinguists, they might go on to record what other people’s reactions to the two phrases are. If, however, they state that “between you and I” is not good English, they have stepped outside their rôle as linguists. They are certainly entitled to make such statements as speakers of English; but when they do so, they should make it clear that they are not acting in the capacity of a linguist, but as a speaker of the language. This is something that is drilled into students as early as linguistics 101. I guess it’s kind of like the credo that journalists should report the news and not BE the news.

I imagine it is the same way in the hard sciences…When scientists set up experiments, they surely have a preference as to the outcome, but they are not supposed to let their preferences get in the way of their objectivity. They have to describe the actual outcome, whether it meets with their preferences or not.

Ann, you make some good points. I guess “Resplendent Woman” is a no-go? ;-) Your photograph makes me appreciate Dean Cain…

Julie, Thank you for posting! By all means, keep me on the straight and narrow. The situation with “ultra” is indeed complex. I’ll cede the point that “ultra” can be used with some nouns, but it is far more productive in combination with adjectives. And many of the nouns that I have seen cited were either borrowed whole from other languages (such as ultra-royalist) or actually built up from adjectives first.

Let me digress with another word: unknowledgeable. This word could, hypothetically, be built up in different ways:

1. know; knowledge; knowledgeable; unknowledgeable

2. know; knowledge; unknowledge; unknowledgeable

3. know; unknow; unknowledge; unknowledgable

Only the first way results in real words in all the intermediate steps. More importantly, the first one follows the rules that speakers of English know about the prefix “un-“. “Un-“ readily combines with verbs (“unzip”), but almost never with nouns. (The advertisement proclaiming a particular brand to be the “Un cola” is so memorable precisely because it violates listener expectations.) The third method of building up the word would be possible, but far less likely, since “unknow” is not a common verb. (The two morphemes in it are both common enough that speakers of English would be able to deduce a meaning for “unknow,” and could readily imagine circumstances where it might be used as a synonym for “forget”; but it is by no means a common word.)

It is my hypothesis that “ultra-cleanliness” in your usage would actually be built up as:

Clean, ultra-clean, ultra-cleanly, ultra-cleanliness.

If this is correct, then “ultra” is modifying the adjective “clean,” and not the noun “cleanliness”.

Of course, if I were to conduct such an analysis for a scholarly paper, I would also check the OED and other sources to see what historical evidence there may be in favour of any of the hypotheses regarding the construction of a polymorphemic word.

Marcus, point taken about ultra-violence in particular. However, Burgess was known for pushing the limits of the English language. In order to have evidence of “ultra+noun” being a productive combination, one must be able to produce a number of such ultra+noun constructions that could not be explained in other fashions, such as I have done for “ultracleanliness” and “ultraroyalist” above.

Incidentally, http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ultra- shows ultra combining with quite a number of words. There are not many ultra+noun combinations, but there are a few that would counter my arguments; such as ultra-heat and ultra-vacuum. These are words that I had not been familiar with, and words that I find awkward. (Yes, “awkward” is a prescriptivist term. I’m speaking with my “speaker of English” hat on when I use it. Linguists actually have a tendency to doff and don both hats fairly frequently. More on that, as well as what linguistics is, in future installments of this series. DW, Stephnachia, et al., thanks for your interest!)

Terry, your point about “Ultra Woman” vs. “Ultrawoman” is another example of the fact that determining what precisely a word is is much trickier than it seems at first blush. I think you may be right about familiarity helping us to accept “Superman”. OTOH, Super- does seem to combine with nouns much more readily than does Ultra-. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/super shows a number of super+noun combinations, such as superhuman, super-achiever, and super-church.

Sue, no comment; but now that you mention it…. ;-)

Edit: I have written my next topic post ("What is linguistics?") and plan to post it over the weekend.

Joy,
Lynn

*musing here for a moment*

I wonder if the reason they went with "Ultra Woman" (I'm uncomfortable posting it this way and you'll hear why in a bit) is because the Superwoman is an evil character in the DC verse. Apparently she and "Ultraman" (yes you heard right) are part of the antimatter universe of the DC comics. Ultraman (who's alter ego is Clark Kent in that universe) is married to Superwoman. I wonder if the reason they chose it was for synchronicity (although if that was the case then she would be spelled "Ultrawoman" rather than "Ultra Woman".) I don't remember when the JLA graphic novel about the antimatter Earth 2 was released so I have no clue if that's part of the decision to name her "Ultra Woman."

I looked it up on Wikipedia .
The Superwoman you mean dates back to 1998, after L&C's run.
But Superwoman itself dates back to some time before 1947 and has a long history of being the alter ego of Lois due to various reasons. The first mention of Superwoman is in a dream of Lois who dreams she is Superwoman.