straight woman
1
8.0
- noun
- /streɪt ˈwʊmən/
- Jargon
:
mujer de apoyo
- Would you complain that a woman of color didn't address the issues of white women on every page of her book, or that a lesbian didn't address the issues of straight women?
Examples
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Just saying, from a straight woman who knew some really nice gay men, and the majority, nothing like that ever happened.
Blog text (29) -
As a straight woman...
Blog text (29) -
In their comedy act, Julia played the straight woman, expertly delivering the serious lines that set up the punchlines.
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The audience loved how Lisa, as the straight woman, reacted with perfect sincerity to her partner's outrageous jokes.
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During the performance, Anna effortlessly took on the role of the straight woman, bringing a delightful contrast to the comedian's antics.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Here 'straight' denotes the serio-comedic role (serious, non-funny partner), not the sexual-orientation sense given for the constituent. A B1 learner who only knows 'straight' as 'heterosexual' would likely interpret 'straight woman' literally and not infer the theatrical/comedic role, so the idiomatic role meaning is not transparently derivable from the provided constituent senses.
Etymology
Straight woman comes from old stage comedy where one performer stayed serious while the other acted silly. The straight partner kept a 'straight' face and set up the jokes, so the phrase means the woman who plays the 'serious partner' in a comedy act.