A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.
The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.
Women is a 1978 novel written by Charles Bukowski, starring his semi-autobiographical character Henry Chinaski. In contrast to Factotum, Post Office and Ham on Rye, Women is centered on Chinaski's later life, as a celebrated poet and writer, not as a dead-end lowlife. It does, however, feature the same constant carousel of women with whom Chinaski only finds temporary fulfillment.
Women focuses on the many dissatisfactions Chinaski faced with each new woman he encountered. One of the women featured in the book is a character named Lydia Vance; she is based on Bukowski's one-time girlfriend, the sculptress and sometime poet Linda King. Another central female character in the book is named "Tanya" who is described as a 'tiny girl-child' and Chinaski's pen-pal. They have a weekend tryst. The real-life counterpart to this character wrote a self-published chapbook about the affair entitled "Blowing My Hero" under the pseudonym Amber O'Neil. The washed-up folksinger "Dinky Summers" is based on Bob Lind.
Women is the debut album by Calgary band Women, recorded by fellow Calgary-native Chad VanGaalen. It was released in 2008 on VanGaalen's Flemish Eye record label in Canada, and on Jagjaguwar in the US. The song "Sag Harbour Song" is a direct reference to the suicide of the artist Ray Johnson, like "Locust Valley" and "Venice Lockjaw" on Women's second album of 2010, Public Strain.
Women was recorded by Polaris Music Prize-nominated Chad VanGaalen, in "[VanGaalen's] basement, an outdoor culvert and a crawlspace." It was recorded using boom boxes and tape machines, contributing to its lo-fi sound.
Women was released to favourable reviews, with Cokemachineglow naming it as "the best 'indie rock' record released [in 2008], hands down."
Thomas Leo Clancy, Jr. (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013) was an American novelist best known for his technically detailed espionage and military science storylines set during and after the Cold War. Seventeen of his novels were bestsellers, and more than 100 million copies of his books are in print. His name was also used on movie scripts written by ghost writers, non-fiction books on military subjects, and video games. He was a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles and Vice Chairman of their Community Activities and Public Affairs committees.
Clancy's literary career began in 1984 when he sold The Hunt for Red October for $5,000. His works, The Hunt for Red October (1984), Patriot Games (1987), Clear and Present Danger (1989), and The Sum of All Fears (1991), have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck, and Chris Pine all playing Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character, John Clark, has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. Clancy died on October 1, 2013, of an undisclosed illness.
Blizzard Entertainment's bestselling real-time strategy game series StarCraft revolves around interstellar affairs in a distant sector of the galaxy, with three species and multiple factions all vying for supremacy in the sector. The playable species of StarCraft include the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth who excel at adapting to any situation; the Zerg, a race of insectoids obsessed with assimilating other races in pursuit of genetic perfection; and the Protoss, a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities, attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophical way of living from the Zerg. Each of these races has a single campaign in each StarCraft real-time strategy game. In addition to these three, various non-playable races have also been part of the lore of the StarCraft series; the most notable of these is the Xel'Naga, a race which features prominently in the fictional histories of the Protoss and Zerg races.
The original game has sold over 10 million copies internationally, and remains one of the most popular games in the world. One of the main factors responsible for StarCraft's positive reception is the attention paid to the three unique playable races, for each of which Blizzard developed completely different characteristics, graphics, backstories and styles of gameplay, while keeping them balanced in performance against each other. Previous to this, most real-time strategy games consisted of factions and races with the same basic play styles and units with only superficial differences. The use of unique sides in StarCraft has been credited with popularizing the concept within the real-time strategy genre. Contemporary reviews of the game have mostly praised the attention to the gameplay balance between the species, as well as the fictional stories built up around them.
Carrier is a surname, and may refer to: