College

[keira]

your adjectives and nouns must match gender. So you make one of them (the adjective?) match the other's gender by making it end in a, or vise-versa.

 

Example: 'Los' in Los Angeles and 'Las' in Las Vegas, both mean the same thing, just a changed gender to match the nouney deal.

[Alorael at Large]

German has a neuter gender, I believe, although I have no idea if it's used for unknowns. It's not a Romance language, though.

 

In Spanish, at least, you use masculine by default. English does the same prescriptively, although it's becoming more and more common to use either both, things like the singular "their" or various gender-neutral neologism.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think Spanish is a high point for gender equality. For standard usage, though, the Academia Real is hard to beat.

[Harehunter]

Multiple choice: Which is correct?

 

1) La Meso.

2) El Meso.

3) La Mesa.

4) El Mesa.

[keira]

3. Mesa is feminine so the article must change.

 

because apparently spaniards like their tables to be female and that makes sense

[Alorael at Large]

La mesa.

 

The noun is masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives must agree with it. The only exceptions are nouns that can be masculine or feminine, which are mostly nouns that refer to entities that actually have a sex or gender.

 

—Alorael, who can talk about el chico or la chica. He can't talk el meso because "meso" isn't a word. And he can discuss el papa or la papa, but the two aren't at all similar: one's a pope and the other's a potato.

[Harehunter]

Why are glasses (either kind) considered masculine? Chair is masculine, knife is feminine, fork is masculine. Gender applies to all objects.

 

-- And you are correct Aloreal, there is a gender neutral article, but it's use is applied only to nouns that are themselves gender neutral.

 

edit: Right on Aloreal. BTW, is also not uncommon for a man to be named Margarito.

 

This article says something about it.

 

Another thing I love about German is how they tend to moosh their nouns together with their adjectives...

Tisch = Table

Lampe = Lamp

TischLampe = table lamp.

 

[Aran]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Another thing I love about German is how they tend to moosh their nouns together with their adjectives...

Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft.

[Harehunter]

Thank you.

You've said a mouthful.

 

Something else comes to mind. It is sometimes possible to detect the difference between an American and a Briton, from their writing. Do they say 'color' or 'colour'? That, and many other subtle differences can be telling.

 

One of my most favorite movies is "My Fair Lady". I thought it rather keen that Rex Harrison's 'enry 'iggins could identify a person's place of origin from their accent alone.

[keira]

I'm American (couldn't you tell from the fatassness and perpetual anger), but I often use the British spellings with the 'u' and don't even notice. I'll blame it on Nikki's awesome influence or something.

 

Now if only I had a british accent too <3

[Khoth]

Yes, we have different spelling in the UK, and sometimes different words, and sometimes the same words meaning different things, and sometimes the whole thing is an incomprehensible mess.

 

Colour, optimise, pavement, biscuit, pants, glaikit.

[Lilith]

don't make words up to confuse people khoth

[Aran]

It's as if you had two entirely different languages.

 

Cor, blimey!

 

Edit: glaikit - you're Scottish, aren't you?

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Why are glasses (either kind) considered masculine? Chair is masculine, knife is feminine, fork is masculine. Gender applies to all objects.

By the way, it's believed that grammatical gender began as a way of marking the distinction between living things and inanimate objects, and evolved into its current bizarre state through linguistic drift.

[Harehunter]

You are crossing into an adjacent, but slightly different stream. Pronunciation and spelling are only the tip of the iceberg. Most dialectal differences appear in the colloquial expressions and slang that act as fairly good markers. What Americans call the piece of metal that covers the engine on a car, or the compartment in the back (of most vehicles anyway) as opposed to what they say in England are indicators of social differences that delineate those two cultures.

 

My English Literature teacher in high school brought those gems back from his trips to England. And I'll never forget the first time I heard the word 'dricht' outside of that classroom, and realized that I knew exactly what it meant. Yes the speaker was on his way back to Glasgow.

 

Then you have your illustrative phrases. "That politician is crookeder than a dog's hind leg." though not uncommon in other parts of the country, is most commonly associated with southerners. And then there's a "Howdy, ya'll" vs "G'day". And Minnesotans have a distinct drawl that is different than the Texas drawl.

 

Sorry folks. I have always had a passion for learning about languages.

 

Edit. @ Lilith, I had not heard that before. That is interesting.

[Aran]

Originally Posted By: Spires and Tunnels

German has a neuter gender, I believe, although I have no idea if it's used for unknowns.

It's not: We have to contend with "s/he", "he or she", as well, with the added inconvenience that most person nouns (chiefly professions) are implicitly male unless "-in" ("Lehrer" / "Lehrerin") is appended, which would be like having to say "teacher / teacheress" in English.

The neuter gender is applied to several person nouns, like "Kind" (child) and "Mädchen" (girl) (though not neutral person nouns in general; "Person" is female). The "Mädchen" stems from it being a diminutive (likely of something like "maid/maiden") that has replaced the original. As a rule, diminutive nouns have a neuter gender.

[Alorael at Large]

English also has many professions that are male unless made female. In fact, English has the -or and -er and -ress, probably from Latin masculine -tor and feminine -trix, and likely by way of French because that's how English works. By extension, -ess can be added to all kinds of things to feminize them. And now, because that's not politically correct, everything is moving away. Women are actors now, and have been murderers for a long time, and haven't ever been commonly called lawyeresses.

 

—Alorael, who has no idea where the genders for inanimate objects came from. And they can be very strange! La silla is a chair, but it switches to masculine to become el sillón if you give it arms and stuffing. And ovarios, which are exactly what you'd think, are somehow masculine. Just don't think too hard about it.

[Callie]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Why are glasses (either kind) considered masculine? Chair is masculine, knife is feminine, fork is masculine. Gender applies to all objects.

By the way, it's believed that grammatical gender began as a way of marking the distinction between living things and inanimate objects, and evolved into its current bizarre state through linguistic drift.

So is this why some body parts you'd think would be feminine are actually masculine?

[Kelandon]

Originally Posted By: Spires and Tunnels

La mesa.

The noun is masculine or feminine, and articles and adjectives must agree with it. The only exceptions are nouns that can be masculine or feminine, which are mostly nouns that refer to entities that actually have a sex or gender.

My favorites are the ones that have the wrong grammatical gender for their letter ending, such as "el dia." (This is a descendant of the Latin dies, which was even then the wrong gender for its declensional paradigm.)

Originally Posted By: Lilith

By the way, it's believed that grammatical gender began as a way of marking the distinction between living things and inanimate objects, and evolved into its current bizarre state through linguistic drift.

Originally Posted By: Aʀᴀɴ

Originally Posted By: Spires and Tunnels

German has a neuter gender, I believe, although I have no idea if it's used for unknowns.

It's not: We have to contend with "s/he", "he or she", as well, with the added inconvenience that most person nouns (chiefly professions) are implicitly male unless "-in" ("Lehrer" / "Lehrerin") is appended, which would be like having to say "teacher / teacheress" in English.

Just to put these two together: the German neuter is used in a fashion parallel to "it" in English. You don't use "it" to refer to people; you use it to refer to things (as an ancient descendant of the animate/inanimate distinction that was the origin of what became grammatical gender in Indo-European nouns).

I was rather astonished to learn that Germans try to maintain some level of gender inclusiveness in their language, because it's as heavily gendered a language as Spanish, and Spanish-speakers, as noted, have utterly given up.

But for true gender/language problems, try Polish. In the singular, there's a masculine/feminine/neuter distinction. In the plural, you can have a masculine animate vs. masculine inanimate distinction or even a masculine personal vs. masculine non-personal distinction. (Note: I may not be remembering this exactly right.)

EDIT: For nonsensical genders of inanimate objects, one of the classics in Spanish is skirt (feminine) vs. dress (masculine).

[Harehunter]

Originally Posted By: Resolute, waiting, and bored

English also has many professions that are male unless made female. In fact, English has the -or and -er and -ress, probably from Latin masculine -tor and feminine -trix, and likely by way of French because that's how English works. By extension, -ess can be added to all kinds of things to feminize them. And now, because that's not politically correct, everything is moving away. Women are actors now, and have been murderers for a long time, and haven't ever been commonly called lawyeresses.

—Alorael, who has no idea where the genders for inanimate objects came from. And they can be very strange! La silla is a chair, but it switches to masculine to become el sillón if you give it arms and stuffing. And ovarios, which are exactly what you'd think, are somehow masculine. Just don't think too hard about it.

What I don't understand is how neutering our language engenders greater equality. Does the title of CongressPerson make any difference in the value of one's vote, as opposed to CongressMan or CongressWoman? I, for one, fail to see that it makes any difference. Equality is not a verbal thing, it is tacit. Actions speak with greater veracity than words.

edit:
I can see where people would like to drop the additional syllables used to feminize professions, or to address them with a single title, say "actors" as opposed to "actors and actresses". Simple economy of words.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Originally Posted By: DANTIUS

Originally Posted By: Master1

The trick with French is that masculine can be used inoffensively.

...That's true in English, too. "The student dropped his books" is perfectly correct if the gender of the student is unknown.

This used to be the case, but many people consider it incorrect usage now. Language is a moving target.

Also, aren't these situations where on would be used in French?

Yeah, French people love to use on, which is literally "one" in English. In fact, I use it to avoid the confusing "you" in English fairly often. There are still cases, however, when masculine pronouns are used in neutral cases. All impersonal expressions (such as: "it's nice out") use either the masculine/neutral pronoun or the demonstrative pronouns ça/cela/ceci/ce/ces.


Another quirk that we get from genders is how English seems to pick them randomly when adopting words. For example, "masculine" is actually the feminine spelling of "masculin/e" from French. Whenever I have to use the masculine form of feminine (feminin), I get confused.

«C'est feminin» just feels weird to type.

[Dintiradan]

Hmm, quick question, I don't remember ever learning this in French. Say you have a sentence talking about a student of unknown gender in French (or a hypothetical student). I'm assuming the subject of the sentence would be "L'étudiant", not "L'étudiante".

 

Now consider the following sentence, which uses a pronoun to refer to the unknown/hypothetical student. Which pronoun is used: "il", or "on"?

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Hmm, quick question, Now consider the following sentence, which uses a pronoun to refer to the unknown/hypothetical student. Which pronoun is used: "il", or "on"?

I've always assumed it would be "on," but I could be entirely incorrect. My recent trip to Paris showed me just how little I remember from 4 years of French classes is high school.

[Alorael at Large]

There are some Spanish words that have reasons for being weird. Words borrowed from Greek, usually ending in -ama (programa, idioma, sistema) are masculine. Then there are the ones that have no good reason. El mano? My favorite is "el agua" for being feminine, as ending in A suggests, but using the masculine article. "La agua is too difficult to say, and we can't have contractions! Make it el agua!"

 

—Alorael, who doesn't think making language gender neutral is itself highly useful. What it does is show token respect to gender neutrality and make the listener/reader aware that the speaker/writer is putting in an effort towards neutrality. In a gender neutral society it wouldn't matter; because society isn't neutral, the linguistic effort makes a difference.

[Student of Trinity]

German is consistent with pronouns. To refer to a masculine noun with a pronoun, you use the masculine pronouns, even if the thing you're referring to is inanimate. Likewise feminine. That just seems quaint to my ear, as if we are personifying everything. But the pronouns to refer to a Mädchen are then neuter, and I can't help thinking of that as disturbingly impersonal. "The girl sat down. It had red hair."

[Khoth]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

What I don't understand is how neutering our language engenders greater equality. Does the title of CongressPerson make any difference in the value of one's vote, as opposed to CongressMan or CongressWoman? I, for one, fail to see that it makes any difference. Equality is not a verbal thing, it is tacit. Actions speak with greater veracity than words.

A Person Paper on Purity in Language

[Aran]

I didn't even know Hofstadter does satire as well as strange loops.

 

I'm tending more and more to a descriptivist view myself. While it is important to write understandably (that is, not divert from common spelling and grammar without good reason) I don't see any value to either preserving a perceived "pure" snapshot of a language that is constantly changing, nor trying to impose linguistic reforms.

 

Because:

 

Quote:

English also has many professions that are male unless made female. In fact, English has the -or and -er and -ress, probably from Latin masculine -tor and feminine -trix, and likely by way of French because that's how English works. By extension, -ess can be added to all kinds of things to feminize them. And now, because that's not politically correct, everything is moving away. Women are actors now, and have been murderers for a long time, and haven't ever been commonly called lawyeresses.

 

In a hundred years, people will not care whether we decided to substitute "mankind" with "humanity", or whether we opted for introducing "xe", "ze", dropping pronouns altogether or somehow redefining either "he" or "she" as neutral. They'll speak in a way that sounds natural to them. If a change makes their communication more convenient, it'll stick. If it's too hard to say, they'll shorten it. If it doesn't quite express what they mean, they'll change the meaning.

 

Therefore the drive to eliminate implicit sexism from language is not about changing language itself (or, to the extent that it is, is ultimately futile). It's about drawing attention to the existence of implicit sexism outside language.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Aʀᴀɴ

[T]he drive to eliminate implicit sexism from language is not about changing language itself .... It's about drawing attention to the existence of implicit sexism outside language.

Genau. The Whorffian interpretation was always a straw man, or at least it should have been.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: DINTIRADAN

Hmm, quick question, I don't remember ever learning this in French. Say you have a sentence talking about a student of unknown gender in French (or a hypothetical student). I'm assuming the subject of the sentence would be "L'étudiant", not "L'étudiante".

Now consider the following sentence, which uses a pronoun to refer to the unknown/hypothetical student. Which pronoun is used: "il", or "on"?

"Il" and "on" could both work, although I would be more inclined to use "il" for a specific mystery person and "on" for an unspecified person. "On" gender neutral, but takes on masculine modifiers, simply because masculine and neutral are the same. It can refer, however, to any gender. "On" is used more often to express a general case than it is to remain gender-neutral.

[Harehunter]

That was probably 1 degree less intelligible than the U.S. Tax Code, and I did make the effort to try to comprehend it.

 

As for trying to fix a language into a particular time, it would be a fruitless task. Just look at how much difference there exists today with how many words whose pronunciation is significantly at odds with their spelling. Listen to a Scotsman say the word "coat", and you will hear both vowels pronounced. "Laughter" is another differentiating word.

 

Question: Why is it "pig" in the barnyard, but "pork" on your plate?

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Harehunter

Question: Why is it "pig" in the barnyard, but "pork" on your plate?

Because pig came from the Saxons, but pork is from their Norman French conquerors.
Edit - That example is mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.

[Harehunter]

That's the way I heard it. And that is one of the major influences that has turned a basically germanic language into the melange it is today. Spanish is still, for the most part, spelled the way it sounds if you take into account the phonemes that their vowels represent. English is notorious for adopting words from other languages, sometimes adapting the spelling to their own, but keeping the pronunciation, or changing the pronunciation and keeping the spelling. Pile those onto a language already rife with irregular verbs, and voila!