Bluestocking

Mr. Benjamin Stillingfleet was the origin of the term bluestocking! ❋ Gailcarriger (2009)

Donna has been a Gentianella I will not have her called a bluestocking for years; and she could tell you astonishing things! ❋ Unknown (2007)

AJ, baby, you look up the word bluestocking in the Merriam-Webster and you'll find a picture of me. ❋ Ann Althouse (2007)

In English parlance (or at least the parlance of my university generation), my - and it sounds like your - core identity is a 'bluestocking' - female, bookish, determined to make up their own mind, not into power/material things in any competitive way (though we are often surprisingly domestic in selected areas, such as cake baking or crafting or homemaking, and we tend to amass books), fascinated by knowledge for its own sake and driven to find out more and to share what we find with others. ❋ JLK (2009)

By the time of Montagu's death in 1800, any female intellectual might be labelled a bluestocking, whether or not she could claim a link to the original circle. ❋ Jan (2008)

'The bluestocking is the most odious character in society,' wrote Hazlitt. ❋ Jan (2008)

Well, if a Gentianella was called a bluestocking commonly, then insisting that the woman in question be named a Gentianella would be insisting that there is little (nothing?) common about her (and by extension, about being a female scientist?) ❋ Unknown (2007)

The internet vitriol easily matched that of William Hazlitt two centuries ago, when he wrote: "The bluestocking is the most odious character in society ... she sinks wherever she is placed, like the yolk of an egg, to the bottom, and carries the filth with her." ❋ Unknown (2009)

The term "bluestocking" changed in the public mind from a compliment to an insult -- even to this day it is a term of denigration, sadly - though not in my book. ❋ Maxine (2009)

On a totally different topic, is the word "bluestocking": ❋ Nwhyte (2008)

'Back in the day' - which is to say, back in the late 17th to early part of the 18th century CE and beyond even today, in some circles, unfortunately, being a "bluestocking" was an epitaph put on a woman who was book-smart and learned. ❋ Jan (2008)

At first, all the party-goers were nicknamed blues, but from the 1770s, the "bluestocking" tag was applied to the women members in particular. ❋ Jan (2008)

My guess is that the author was simply trying to find a prettier term than "bluestocking" which sounds pretty cloddish no matter what it means for a character who is the epitome of a lady. ❋ Unknown (2007)

Eugene Debs sponsered by the Church of the presumptious assumption says: bluestocking ❋ Unknown (2010)

I went because it tied in really well with some work projects (like the museum metadata mashup competition we're running later in the year or the attempt to get a critical mass of vaguely compatible museum data available for re-use) and stuff I'm interested in personally (like modern bluestocking, my project for this summer - let me know if you want to help, or just add inspiring women to freebase). ❋ Mia (2009)

That [new girl's] giving me [blue balls] with her bluestockingism and her [sexy librarian] thing. ❋ Zoicks (2008)