The Hamlet Project

It’s funny that we don’t use nunnery anymore yet everyone knows what it is, almost instantly. It is a much more descriptive word than “convent.” Nunnery makes total sense as a place full of nuns the way a monastery is a place full of monks. What happened in the language that we went with the less clear word?
Is it that convent sounds so much more sober? And that the nunneries in these earlier times actually had a bit of a reputation for being the opposite of what they were designed for? Maybe all the nuns who were into being quiet and sober and chaste and religious got together and were like, “We have to re-brand this thing. We’re getting exactly the wrong reputation with this nunnery thing. Let’s try a different word. Same job – different name for our home.”