借着谈音乐，贴一篇短文，以前为解释Soprano这个词而写的。
The Inertia of Words: Soprano
We know that a soprano usually is a female singer with a voice ranging from about middle C to two octaves above it, and we know that this word originates from Italian, but why does it have a masculine ending o?
Soprano was originally an adjective, meaning "above, highest, and royal." In the feudalistic societies, men were considered superior and had the highest positions, and that is why the word is masculine. When opera became a fashion in Italy in the early 18th century, soprano acquired an additional part of speech as a noun meaning the highest singing voice. At that time, boys and men, in women's costumes, played the female roles in opera, so the derived meaning of soprano as a singer remained masculine.
With the progress of societies, girls and women began to perform on stage and took their rightful roles back from men, who were sometimes even castrated to maintain their high-pitched voice. However, the word soprano remains unchanged; another example of the inertia of words.
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