SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS: Unisex.

Welcome to another installment of SHANE'S EXCELLENT NEW WORDS, a regular Wednesday feature at NA Confidential.

But why new words? Why not the old, familiar, comforting words?

It's because a healthy vocabulary isn't about trying to show Trump-ers and Trump-ets that you're brighter than them. To the contrary, it's about selecting the right word and using it correctly, whatever one's pay grade or station in life.

Even municipal corporate attorneys are eligible for this enlightening expansion of personal horizons, and really, for those of us who want nothing more than to be able to cross the street without being mowed down by a motorist, all we have is time -- and the opportunity to learn something.

You may have seen this image on Facebook. It's from a Kroger store in Athens, Georgia, and has been shared 112,000 times.

Judging from some of the responses, it seems that a great many people are not aware of what "unisex" means.

Unisex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unisex refers to things that are not gender-specific, being suitable for any gender,^[1][2] but can also be another term for gender-blindness.

The term was coined in the 1960s and was used fairly informally. Though the combining form uni- is from the Latin unus meaning one, the term seems to have been influenced by words such as united and universal where the uni- prefix takes on the sense of shared. In this sense, it can be seen as meaning shared by both sexes.^[3]

You no longer have an excuse, Dan.