Studies such as Lakoff's have been labeled the "deficit approach", since they posit that one gender is deficient in terms of the other. Descriptions of women's speech as deficient can actually be dated as far back as Otto Jespersen's "The Woman", a chapter in his 1922 book Language: Its Nature and Development, and Origin.[9] Jespersen's idea that women's speech is deficient relative to a male norm went largely unchallenged until Lakoff's work appeared fifty years later.[2] Nevertheless, despite the political incorrectness of the chapter's language from a modern perspective, Jespersen's contributions remain relevant.