Bachelorette

Bachelorette is a term used in American English for a single, unmarried woman. The term is derived from the word bachelor, and is often used by journalists, editors of popular magazines, and some individuals. "Bachelorette" was famously the term used to refer to female contestants on the old The Dating Game TV show and, more recently, The Bachelorette.

In older English, the female counterpart term to "bachelor" was "spinster". However, this has acquired negative connotations and mostly been abandoned. When used now, it tends to imply that the woman has never been married and is too old to find a husband and have children. A bachelorette may have previously been in a relationship.

In Canada, the term bachelorette also refers to a small bachelor apartment (an apartment with only one large room serving as a bedroom and living room plus a separate bathroom—see studio apartment).

Derivation

The more proper neologism would be bacheloress, since the -ess suffix is the standard English suffix denoting a female subject, while -ette is a French-origin diminutive suffix, mainly used to something is smaller in size. However, in American English the -ess suffix is only marginally morphologically productive, and the -ette suffix can indicate a feminine version of a noun without a change in size (though many such words in -ette were intended to be jocular when they were first coined). The -ess suffix is also slowly falling into disuse in the English language due to attempts to neutralize professional terms; it is therefore less commonly applied to new terms nowadays.

The Bachelorette

The Bachelorette is a spin-off from the American competitive reality dating game show The Bachelor. In its January 2003 debut on ABC, the first season featured Trista Rehn, the runner-up date from the first season of The Bachelor, offering the opportunity for Rehn to choose a husband among 25 bachelors. The 2004 season of The Bachelorette again took a runner-up from the previous season of The Bachelor. After last airing on February 28, 2005, the series returned to ABC during the spring of 2008, following an absence of three years.

Plot

All of the rules are adopted from its parent show, The Bachelor. The series revolves around a single bachelorette (deemed eligible) and a pool of romantic interests (typically 25; 30 in season 5), which could include a potential husband for the bachelorette. The format is the same as the parent show. Unlike The Bachelor, one of two male suitors proposes to the bachelorette for the final selection. The Bachelor does not, however, always propose at the end of the show. At the end of Juan Pablo's season, he decided to "choose" a girl to keep spending time with, but evidentially was not ready for a proposal. A proposal at the end of the show is not always guaranteed. It is up to the bachelor/bachelorette to decide that.

Bachelorette (singer)

Bachelorette is the musical project of New Zealander Annabel Alpers. Formed in 2004 in Christchurch, Bachelorette mixes '60s psychedelia and girl-group pop with folk and vintage electronics.

Prior to Bachelorette, Alpers played in Christchurch surf-band Hawaii Five-O and Hiss Explosion.

Musical career

Bachelorette envisions herself surrounded by her computer ‘musicians’; her songs “often start simply and spiral outward like cotton candy in the making.”. Bachelorette’s music was originally crafted with thrift-store found instruments, resulting in psychedelic computer folk music, "a student of computer-based composition", or a “lo-fi, one-woman version of Animal Collective.”

Alpers tends to write all albums in isolation in various countryside locales: the Canterbury Hills and west coast of New Zealand, and in rural Virginia. Her music is of that interdependent relationship - sometimes romantic - that exists between humans and machine, where one cannot successfully conquer the other. After touring the United States in 2008, Drag City put out Bachelorette's first international release, My Electric Family. Bachelorette's songs "Long Time Gone" and "Her Rotating Head" were used in Grey's Anatomy episodes 6.04 and 6.08, respectively. Bachelorette has since toured with The Magnetic Fields, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Bill Callahan, Animal Collective, Low, Beach House, and Peter Bjorn & John, in addition to her own headline tours in the US and Europe.