Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wols Lists]

On 18/11/17 18:18, Karlin High wrote:
> On 11/18/2017 11:33 AM, David Wright wrote:
>> You might find yourself being
>> misunderstood in more serious circumstances, if you don't allow
>> for the same words to mean different things, or even the opposite.
> 
> Reminds me of my cousin on a business trip to England. He learned that,
> unlike in America, the terms "phone card" and "calling card" are NOT
> equivalent and interchangeable.

Which is why, while I don't give a monkeys which version of English you
use (and I *most* *emphatically* *do* *not* think "Standard English" is
THE correct form of English), I really would like to know which version
you are speaking because I would like to understand you.

Calling cards pre-date phones. And while I don't know exactly where the
critters live, I think if a skunk left its calling card close by you'd
know about it! Certainly it's a damn nuisance when the foxes leave
theirs outside our doors.

Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2017-11-18 um 18:33 schrieb David Wright :

> On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 17:43:09 (+), Wol's lists wrote:
> In English? So when I write "I'm at deathes door", which of deathes
> three genders am I using?

You always use deathes LAST gender. And I’m sure they have more than three.

> It's a pity you weren't around at the time "it's" and "its" were
> invented, to rebuke people who used the former. Or perhaps we could
> just admit that allowing "its" into English was one huge mistake,
> and go back to using "his". Now nobody will have to remember which
> spelling is which. Of course, any child can justify their writing
> "it's". There's an "it", it possesses something, so stick an  's
> on the end. Perhaps Shakespeare had a better reason for writing "it's".

How about "ithes"?

>> (Dialect is not Standard English, if you want to talk dialect that's
>> fine, just accept that it is not standard.)
> 
> I see. So Standard English is what you accept, and no more?
> Where do we find this Standard English? Perhaps we need an
> English Language Academy to guard this young language lest it
> be corrupted by its young speakers. We can't trust them.

Standard English is the dialect of Standardshire.

> Not knowing the people or the circumstances, I can't judge. But a
> word of warning: don't ever travel. You might find yourself being
> misunderstood in more serious circumstances, if you don't allow
> for the same words to mean different things, or even the opposite.

No, no: Word *always* mean what I intend them to mean.

And both of my grammars are dead.

EOT

Greetlings, Hraban
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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Karlin High]

On 11/18/2017 11:33 AM, David Wright wrote:

You might find yourself being
misunderstood in more serious circumstances, if you don't allow
for the same words to mean different things, or even the opposite.


Reminds me of my cousin on a business trip to England. He learned that, 
unlike in America, the terms "phone card" and "calling card" are NOT 
equivalent and interchangeable.

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 17:43:09 (+), Wol's lists wrote:
> On 17/11/17 16:10, David Wright wrote:
> >On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 07:45:58 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> >>Hi all,
> >>
> >
> >>[Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:]
> >
> >>>An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" 
> >>>(short for "so ein Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).
> >>
> >>It's the same in English, naturally.
> >
> >It's just one of its uses, true. But the following sentence said:
> >
> >«"While it would make some sense to use it in "mein’s" ("meines"), while 
> >still being unnecessary, it makes no sense at all to use it in a genitive 
> >like "Lisa’s" except in cases like "Jens’s" (oldfashioned but complete would 
> >be "Jensens").»¹
> >
> >implying that something *has to be* omitted for an apostrophe to make
> >sense, but that is not true in English.
> 
> Examples, please. A suitably "grammatically correct" one, please :-)

You won't be happy with the apostrophe's shape if you don't use ’ in
Lilypond. I want to dot the i's and cross the t's before I give you
a copy. I had to buy manuscript paper back in the 1960's but LilyPond
has put paid to that. Socrates' death inspired this piece. Wichita's
last syllable rhymes with ajar if you don't pronounce your r's. The
FBI's behaviour was faultless. I tried to use somebody else's cheque
book but it was so old that it still had Barclay's Bank printed on it.
Are we providing separate facilities for V.I.P.'s to use? Westward Ho!'s
full title has 36 words. The man in the moon's smile is more of a smirk.
She comes and parks in whoever's not here's space that day.
(Apologies that they're all in English, not German.)

> >>Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" 
> >>(though even most native speakers don't know that).
> >
> >Of course, they don't need to know that because English accepts
> >'s tacked onto almost anything to indicate a possessive relationship.²
> >
> Because the CORRECT possessive ending, as mentioned above, is "es".

In English? So when I write "I'm at deathes door", which of deathes
three genders am I using?

> Except it's been corrupted to " 's ".

Who's to blame for this corruption? Have they been charged?

> In other words, if you tack " 's "
> onto the end of a word to indicate the possessive, something
> HAS been omitted, namely the "e". Which is why it's wrong to use an
> apostrophe with the possessive "its", because there was never an "e"
> there in the first place.

It's a pity you weren't around at the time "it's" and "its" were
invented, to rebuke people who used the former. Or perhaps we could
just admit that allowing "its" into English was one huge mistake,
and go back to using "his". Now nobody will have to remember which
spelling is which. Of course, any child can justify their writing
"it's". There's an "it", it possesses something, so stick an  's
on the end. Perhaps Shakespeare had a better reason for writing "it's".

> >Native speakers don't learn the language by studying its derivations,
> >but by being immersed in it. At school, they are taught "rules" that
> >make it easier to cope with the areas where immersion is less than
> >total (eg writing, formal constructions).
> 
> And said rules nearly always have their roots in genuine stuff. All
> too often I agree the rules are mis-applied, especially when they
> state that a modern young construct is "more correct" than the older
> construct that preceded it, "Standard English" is a very young
> language, but I do strongly support the use of "Standard English"
> and its associated rules - one of which is that an apostrophe
> indicates omitted letters, usually in the possessive, and should not
> be used where letters have not been left out.
> 
> (Dialect is not Standard English, if you want to talk dialect that's
> fine, just accept that it is not standard.)

I see. So Standard English is what you accept, and no more?
Where do we find this Standard English? Perhaps we need an
English Language Academy to guard this young language lest it
be corrupted by its young speakers. We can't trust them.

> >Only specialists have to worry about derivations. They can't be
> >ignored when trying to tease out what the underlying rules of a
> >language really are; similarly, the mistakes made by children are
> >an important aspect of searching for those rules.
> >
> Anybody who cares about communicating should care about language.

But most native speakers don't care about language; they just use it
to communicate. Quite well, it appears. We're the unusual ones.

> And if you care about language you need to care about derivation and
> grammar and all that stuff.

So your care of the language concerns itself with examining words
that contain an apostrophe and checking back to make sure that at
least one letter has been omitted. What do you do when you find
an example that doesn't conform? Strike out the apostrophe?
Censure the 

Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[J Martin Rushton]

On 17/11/17 21:28, Peter Chubb wrote:
> For interest, here's a link to a short article written by Poul
> Anderson, as if English were purged of almost all non-germanic words,
> and still used German-style compounds.
> 
> Very off topic!
> https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language.artificial/ZL4e3fD7eW0/_7p8bKwLJWkJ
> 
Absolutely brilliant!  Thank you.



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Peter Chubb]

For interest, here's a link to a short article written by Poul
Anderson, as if English were purged of almost all non-germanic words,
and still used German-style compounds.

Very off topic!
https://groups.google.com/forum/message/raw?msg=alt.language.artificial/ZL4e3fD7eW0/_7p8bKwLJWkJ


-- 
Dr Peter Chubb Tel: +61 2 9490 5852  http://ts.data61.csiro.au/
Trustworthy Systems Group   Data61 (formerly NICTA)

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Wol,

>>> Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" 
>>> (though even most native speakers don't know that).
>> Of course, they don't need to know that because English accepts
>> 's tacked onto almost anything to indicate a possessive relationship.²
> Because the CORRECT possessive ending, as mentioned above, is "es". Except 
> it's been corrupted to " 's ". In other words, if you tack " 's " onto the 
> end of a word to indicate the possessive, something HAS been omitted, namely 
> the "e". Which is why it's wrong to use an apostrophe with the possessive 
> "its", because there was never an "e" there in the first place.

Thank you. You understand what I was trying to say.  =)

> Anybody who cares about communicating should care about language. And if you 
> care about language you need to care about derivation and grammar and all 
> that stuff.

PREACH!!

Kieren.


Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: i...@kierenmacmillan.info


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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[mskala]

On Fri, 17 Nov 2017, J Martin Rushton wrote:
> There is a similar issue with the "apologetic apostrophe" in Scots.
> From the 18thC to mid-20thC writers inserted apostrophes where Scots
> didn't have a consonant that English does.  For instance the English
> word "give" is equivalent to the Scots word "gie".  The apologetic
> apostrophe would render this "gi'e" but this is now frowned upon.

Maybe someday writers of English will ha[v]e to use apologetic
square brackets.

-- 
Matthew Skala
msk...@ansuz.sooke.bc.ca People before principles.
http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Karlin High]

On 11/17/2017 11:43 AM, Wol's lists wrote:
If you don't, you get into the Humpty Dumpty world of "words mean what  
I say they mean" and you can't understand what someone else is saying


https://xkcd.com/1860/


it's like people saying "computer memory" when they mean the hard disk...


Or my elderly tech support client who refers to all forms of email as 
"Outlook Express."

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wol's lists]

On 17/11/17 16:10, David Wright wrote:

On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 07:45:58 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:

Hi all,




[Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:]



An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" (short for "so ein 
Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).


It's the same in English, naturally.


It's just one of its uses, true. But the following sentence said:

«"While it would make some sense to use it in "mein’s" ("meines"), while still being unnecessary, it makes no 
sense at all to use it in a genitive like "Lisa’s" except in cases like "Jens’s" (oldfashioned but complete would 
be "Jensens").»¹

implying that something *has to be* omitted for an apostrophe to make
sense, but that is not true in English.


Examples, please. A suitably "grammatically correct" one, please :-)



Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" (though 
even most native speakers don't know that).


Of course, they don't need to know that because English accepts
's tacked onto almost anything to indicate a possessive relationship.²

Because the CORRECT possessive ending, as mentioned above, is "es". 
Except it's been corrupted to " 's ". In other words, if you tack " 's " 
onto the end of a word to indicate the possessive, something HAS been 
omitted, namely the "e". Which is why it's wrong to use an apostrophe 
with the possessive "its", because there was never an "e" there in the 
first place.



Native speakers don't learn the language by studying its derivations,
but by being immersed in it. At school, they are taught "rules" that
make it easier to cope with the areas where immersion is less than
total (eg writing, formal constructions).


And said rules nearly always have their roots in genuine stuff. All too 
often I agree the rules are mis-applied, especially when they state that 
a modern young construct is "more correct" than the older construct that 
preceded it, "Standard English" is a very young language, but I do 
strongly support the use of "Standard English" and its associated rules 
- one of which is that an apostrophe indicates omitted letters, usually 
in the possessive, and should not be used where letters have not been 
left out.


(Dialect is not Standard English, if you want to talk dialect that's 
fine, just accept that it is not standard.)


Only specialists have to worry about derivations. They can't be
ignored when trying to tease out what the underlying rules of a
language really are; similarly, the mistakes made by children are
an important aspect of searching for those rules.

Anybody who cares about communicating should care about language. And if 
you care about language you need to care about derivation and grammar 
and all that stuff. If you don't, you get into the Humpty Dumpty world 
of "words mean what  I say they mean" and you can't understand what 
someone else is saying - I had a perfect example of that this morning 
when somebody said "close a door" when they meant "lock a door". It's 
horribly frustrating when you're talking at cross purposes because you 
don't know what the other person means. To bring it into computerese, 
it's like people saying "computer memory" when they mean the hard disk...


Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[J Martin Rushton]

On 17/11/17 07:55, Henning Hraban Ramm wrote:
> 

> 
> Some people also think they need to use an apostrophe in dialect words like 
> "Mader’l" (Bavarian/Austrian diminutive of "Maid/Mädchen"), and that’s also 
> completely wrong, since "-e(r)l" ("-le" in Suebian, "-li" in Swiss German) is 
> just a dialect variant of standard German diminutive suffix "-lein".
> 

> 
> Greetlings, Hraban
> ---
> fiëé visuëlle
> Henning Hraban Ramm
> http://www.fiee.net

There is a similar issue with the "apologetic apostrophe" in Scots.
From the 18thC to mid-20thC writers inserted apostrophes where Scots
didn't have a consonant that English does.  For instance the English
word "give" is equivalent to the Scots word "gie".  The apologetic
apostrophe would render this "gi'e" but this is now frowned upon.

REgards,
Martin



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Fri 17 Nov 2017 at 07:45:58 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi all,
> 

> [Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:]

> > An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" 
> > (short for "so ein Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).
> 
> It's the same in English, naturally.

It's just one of its uses, true. But the following sentence said:

«"While it would make some sense to use it in "mein’s" ("meines"), while still 
being unnecessary, it makes no sense at all to use it in a genitive like 
"Lisa’s" except in cases like "Jens’s" (oldfashioned but complete would be 
"Jensens").»¹

implying that something *has to be* omitted for an apostrophe to make
sense, but that is not true in English.

> Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" (though 
> even most native speakers don't know that).

Of course, they don't need to know that because English accepts
's tacked onto almost anything to indicate a possessive relationship.²

Native speakers don't learn the language by studying its derivations,
but by being immersed in it. At school, they are taught "rules" that
make it easier to cope with the areas where immersion is less than
total (eg writing, formal constructions).

Only specialists have to worry about derivations. They can't be
ignored when trying to tease out what the underlying rules of a
language really are; similarly, the mistakes made by children are
an important aspect of searching for those rules.

¹ I have no view on the section in guillemets as it's about German.
Would it be appropriate to move the more in-depth discussions of
German to a .de forum? Here it's rather (OT)².

² There is a heavily disputed "rule" that possessives should only
be used with animate nouns. I don't know whether this is related
to the derivation mentioned here, or perhaps to the "his genitive"
that some teachers peddle.

Cheers,
David.

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi all,

> An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" 
> (short for "so ein Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).

It's the same in English, naturally.
Even the possessive "Kieren's" is derived from old English "Kierenes" (though 
even most native speakers don't know that).

Cheers,
Kieren.


Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: i...@kierenmacmillan.info


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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Blöchl Bernhard]

In this example ... Der Vogelsberg, wo's.." the apostrophe makes the 
sentence ambiguous. Grammatically it is correct, however the apostrophe 
can stand for "es" or "das" (non PC). The version "...wos " is not 
correct and not used in correct German.


Regards

Am 17.11.2017 10:48, schrieb Knut Petersen:

Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:

The wrong use of an apostrophe in German is called "Deppen-Apostroph" 
(Deppostroph?), it shows only that you don’t master your mother 
language.


Sometimes an apostrophe completely changes the meaning of a sentence:

"Der Vogelsberg, wo's Vögeln gut geht."   !=  "Der Vogelsberg, wos
Vögeln gut geht." ;-))

Knut



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Knut Petersen]

Am 17.11.2017 um 08:55 schrieb Henning Hraban Ramm:

The wrong use of an apostrophe in German is called "Deppen-Apostroph" (Deppostroph?), it shows only that you don’t master your mother language. 


Sometimes an apostrophe completely changes the meaning of a sentence:

"Der Vogelsberg, wo's Vögeln gut geht."   !=  "Der Vogelsberg, wos Vögeln gut 
geht." ;-))

Knut



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2017-11-17 um 00:50 schrieb Simon Albrecht :

> On 16.11.2017 17:37, Werner Arnhold wrote:
>> For example: the English
>> language knows the saxon genitiv form e.g. "Garner's" (see below). In
>> German it always was absolutely wrong to use a quote for that reason.
>> When after the german reunion a big part of the people raised with
>> Russion as first foreign language, they often used that form, e.g.
>> "Lisa's Wolllädchen". Some time ago that way of writing was declared
>> legal.
> 
> Interesting. That’s an explanation I’ve never heard before, but I do know 
> that using an apostrophe with the genitive of names was perfectly normal in 
> German in the 19th century (and I would be in favor of reintroducing it… :-) )

An apostrophe in German is a sign for something left out like "so’n Ding" 
(short for "so ein Ding"), similar to English use in "don’t" (do not).

While it would make some sense to use it in "mein’s" ("meines"), while still 
being unnecessary, it makes no sense at all to use it in a genitive like 
"Lisa’s" except in cases like "Jens’s" (oldfashioned but complete would be 
"Jensens").

Some people also think they need to use an apostrophe in dialect words like 
"Mader’l" (Bavarian/Austrian diminutive of "Maid/Mädchen"), and that’s also 
completely wrong, since "-e(r)l" ("-le" in Suebian, "-li" in Swiss German) is 
just a dialect variant of standard German diminutive suffix "-lein".

The wrong use of an apostrophe in German is called "Deppen-Apostroph" 
(Deppostroph?), it shows only that you don’t master your mother language.
See e.g. http://www.deppenapostroph.info


Greetlings, Hraban
---
fiëé visuëlle
Henning Hraban Ramm
http://www.fiee.net




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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Simon Albrecht]

On 16.11.2017 17:37, Werner Arnhold wrote:

For example: the English
language knows the saxon genitiv form e.g. "Garner's" (see below). In
German it always was absolutely wrong to use a quote for that reason.
When after the german reunion a big part of the people raised with
Russion as first foreign language, they often used that form, e.g.
"Lisa's Wolllädchen". Some time ago that way of writing was declared
legal.


Interesting. That’s an explanation I’ve never heard before, but I do 
know that using an apostrophe with the genitive of names was perfectly 
normal in German in the 19th century (and I would be in favor of 
reintroducing it… :-) )


Best, Simon

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Henning Hraban Ramm]

Am 2017-11-16 um 14:22 schrieb N. Andrew Walsh :

> Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general question of 
> the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court recently ruled that 
> forcing people born in Germany to identify only as either male or female on 
> official documentation is discriminatory (for a number of reasons, including: 
> some people cannot be biologically categorized as entirely one or the other, 
> some people are mis-assigned, some people don't identify that way, etc.). The 
> court provided two possible remedies: either add a third category (presumably 
> "unspecified"), or strike sex from official documentation entirely. 
> 
> Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is likely to 
> happen here, as people start entering into adult life with no specified male 
> or female gender? As noted above, referring to biological organisms, much 
> less people, with the neuter pronoun would likely be considered unacceptable. 
> So what do you imagine is likely to happen here? Is the Duden going to start 
> establishing what is effectively a fourth gender category? 

Finally, a good decision, as far as I can tell.
While trans* people often use singular "they" in English, that doesn’t work in 
German, since "sie" is they as well as she and You (polite form). "es" is 
unacceptable, as you noted. I wanted to research anyway how German trans* 
people want to be called, a quick search found:

- xier, dey (http://nonbinarytransgermany.tumblr.com/language)
- sif, sies, xier, nin, sei 
(https://weltenschmiede.wordpress.com/2014/08/24/gastartikel-er-sie-xier-nin-genderneutrale-pronomen/)


Greetlings, Hraban
---
fiëé visuëlle
Henning Hraban Ramm
http://www.fiee.net




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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wols Lists]

On 16/11/17 13:58, Karlin High wrote:
> On 11/16/2017 7:45 AM, David Kastrup wrote:
>> Personally, I don't think that micromanaging gender identities is going
>> to help anybody deal better with who and what they and/or others are.
> 
> "Shifts in terms have an unfortunate side effect. Many people who don't
> have a drop of malice or prejudice but happen to be older or distant
> from university, media and government spheres find themselves tainted as
> bigots for innocently using passe terms such as "Oriental" or "crippled."
> 
> "Arbiters of the changing linguistic fashions must ask themselves
> whether this stigmatization is really what they set out to accomplish."

As I found out on Groklaw whenever the topic of race came up. As far as
I can tell, the word "Black" is extremely offensive in America,
certainly it triggered instant censorship on Groklaw.

So what am I supposed to do? Over here, blacks are not "African
Americans", they're not American, and would object to the word African
especially as many are Caribbean - as am I except that I'm white.

I now use the term "Politically Correct" as an insult :-)

Oh, and as to the original German court ruling, as a Scientist I have to
argue that they got it right. I know of NO definition that can be
accurately used to determine a person's gender other than what they
define themselves as.

Something as simple as genotype, we don't have two, we have four (the
minor two are rather unusual, admittedly). We don't have two phenotypes,
we have three (the third being very ambiguous in more ways than one :-).
And there is no perfect correlation between genotype and phenotype -
even within out standard "two of each" model, there is no guarantee the
genotype and phenotype match.

Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Werner Arnhold]

Hy Linguisers and Linguistresses,

Am Donnerstag, den 16.11.2017, 14:22 +0100 schrieb N. Andrew Walsh:
> On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:04 AM, David Wright
>  wrote:
> 
> 
> > German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
> >
> > >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three
> genders are the
> > >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or
> ‘it’. In
> > >> > English the sun is male, the moon female
> 
> Think so, grammatically?
> 
> 
> Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general
> question of the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court
> recently ruled that forcing people born in Germany to identify only as
> either male or female on official documentation is discriminatory (for
> a number of reasons, including: some people cannot be biologically
> categorized as entirely one or the other, some people are
> mis-assigned, some people don't identify that way, etc.). The court
> provided two possible remedies: either add a third category
> (presumably "unspecified"), or strike sex from official documentation
> entirely. 
> 
> 
> Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is
> likely to happen here, as people start entering into adult life with
> no specified male or female gender? As noted above, referring to
> biological organisms, much less people, with the neuter pronoun would
> likely be considered unacceptable. So what do you imagine is likely to
> happen here? Is the Duden going to start establishing what is
> effectively a fourth gender category? 

The Duden is never a creator of new forms. They watch the moving and
billowing Landscape of spoken and even more written Language. There are
orthographic forms in use that are definitely considered wrong. But if
they are used in a broad way by many people, the Duden accepts that and
declare it to be correct or at least possible. For example: the English
language knows the saxon genitiv form e.g. "Garner's" (see below). In
German it always was absolutely wrong to use a quote for that reason.
When after the german reunion a big part of the people raised with
Russion as first foreign language, they often used that form, e.g.
"Lisa's Wolllädchen". Some time ago that way of writing was declared
legal.

In the feministic discussion a form came up to write no longer Lehrer
und Lehrerinnen (teacher) but LehrerInnen. Though widely used this form
could not get broad acceptance ans so didn't make it in the Duden.

If a fourth form of gender pronoun will come up and will be widely used
it will make its way to the Duden too.


> As a consummate mannerist, I'm in favor of all linguistic expansion. 
> 

Werner



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[N. Andrew Walsh]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:04 AM, David Wright 
wrote:

>
>
> > German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
> >
> > >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
> > >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
> > >> > English the sun is male, the moon female
>
> Think so, grammatically?
>

Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general question of
the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court recently ruled that
forcing people born in Germany to identify only as either male or female on
official documentation is discriminatory (for a number of reasons,
including: some people cannot be biologically categorized as entirely one
or the other, some people are mis-assigned, some people don't identify that
way, etc.). The court provided two possible remedies: either add a third
category (presumably "unspecified"), or strike sex from official
documentation entirely.

Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is likely to
happen here, as people start entering into adult life with no specified
male or female gender? As noted above, referring to biological organisms,
much less people, with the neuter pronoun would likely be considered
unacceptable. So what do you imagine is likely to happen here? Is the Duden
going to start establishing what is effectively a fourth gender category?

As a consummate mannerist, I'm in favor of all linguistic expansion.

Also, an excellent source for English Usage is Garner's "Modern English
Usage," which notes that when deciding on "-ic" vs. "-ical," it is best
simply to consult several dictionaries for prevalent usage, using both
where they have different meanings (as with "historic" vs. "historical"),
and avoiding needless differentiation elsewhere (as with "biologic" or
"ecologic"). Garner uses "grammatical," for what that's worth.

Cheers,

A
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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Erik Ronström]

Swedish (if anyone’s interested) has two grammatical genders, but they are not 
connected to male/female. Third person singular ”den”/”det” would both just 
translate to ”it” in English, whereas ”han” and ”hon” (”he” and ”she”) are 
separate pronouns only used for people (plus animals and things to which you 
have a personal relation).

(So I don’t know if you could say that we technically have four grammatical 
genders, I have a vague memory from my school time about it)

Erik





> 15 nov. 2017 kl. 23:32 skrev Wol's lists :
> 
> On 15/11/17 20:32, David Kastrup wrote:
>> David Wright  writes:
>>> On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
 Hi Simon,
 
> 
>>> 
>>> A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
>>> grammatical gender. How is that expressed?
>> "The duchess ate her lunch" as opposed to "The duchess ate its lunch"?
>> German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
> 
> Except that "her" refers to the person, not the noun ...
> 
> Mind you, I would feel happy with the following:
> The cat ate its lunch (indeterminate gender)
> The tom ate its lunch (we know it's male because it's a tom)
> The queen ate its lunch (we know it's female because it's a queen)
> 
> But I suspect that's because we rarely use "tom" or "queen", and your mind 
> substitutes the indeterminate "cat".
> It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
> same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
> English the sun is male, the moon female
 
 I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard
 an exchange like:
 
   Q: Is the sun up yet?
   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.
>>> 
>>> Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
>>> Again, personification, not grammar.
>> "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
>> And often is his gold complexion dimm'd"
>> Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.
> But again, personification, not grammar. To me that feels slightly weird - as 
> far as I am concerned the sun is "it".
> 
> Cheers,
> Wol
> 
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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Karlin High]

On 11/16/2017 7:45 AM, David Kastrup wrote:

Personally, I don't think that micromanaging gender identities is going
to help anybody deal better with who and what they and/or others are.


"Shifts in terms have an unfortunate side effect. Many people who don't 
have a drop of malice or prejudice but happen to be older or distant 
from university, media and government spheres find themselves tainted as 
bigots for innocently using passe terms such as "Oriental" or "crippled."


"Arbiters of the changing linguistic fashions must ask themselves 
whether this stigmatization is really what they set out to accomplish."


-- Stephen Pinker, "The Game of the Name," Aug 6 1994 Baltimore Sun

That article is famous for its idea of the "euphemism treadmill:"

"The euphemism treadmill shows that concepts, not words, are in charge. 
Give a concept a new name, and the name becomes colored by the concept; 
the concept does not become freshened by the name."

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Kastrup]

"N. Andrew Walsh"  writes:

> On Thu, Nov 16, 2017 at 3:04 AM, David Wright 
> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> > German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
>> >
>> > >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
>> > >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
>> > >> > English the sun is male, the moon female
>>
>> Think so, grammatically?
>>
>
> Since this is already well off-topic, I'd like to ask a general question of
> the German speakers here: the Constitutional Court recently ruled that
> forcing people born in Germany to identify only as either male or female on
> official documentation is discriminatory (for a number of reasons,
> including: some people cannot be biologically categorized as entirely one
> or the other, some people are mis-assigned, some people don't identify that
> way, etc.). The court provided two possible remedies: either add a third
> category (presumably "unspecified"), or strike sex from official
> documentation entirely.
>
> Since German *does* use gendered pronouns, what do you imagine is likely to
> happen here, as people start entering into adult life with no specified
> male or female gender? As noted above, referring to biological organisms,
> much less people, with the neuter pronoun would likely be considered
> unacceptable. So what do you imagine is likely to happen here? Is the Duden
> going to start establishing what is effectively a fourth gender category?

I think you misunderstand what the Duden does.  It is descriptive, not
prescriptive.  There is no such thing as the "Académie Française" that
has the power to prescribe language usage.  The closest thing is the
Kultusministerkonferenz which can decide which teaching materials to use
and what spellings are to be used in official documents.

> As a consummate mannerist, I'm in favor of all linguistic expansion.

Personally, I don't think that micromanaging gender identities is going
to help anybody deal better with who and what they and/or others are.

-- 
David Kastrup

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 21:32:52 (+0100), David Kastrup wrote:
> David Wright  writes:
> 
> > On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> >> Hi Simon,
> >> 
> >> > On Nov 14, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Simon Albrecht  
> >> > wrote:
> >> > 
> >> >> Again, here English is very unusual because words do not have a gender
> >> >> (the objects they refer to may, but that's different ... :-)
> >> > 
> >> > How would that be true?
> >> 
> >> See, e.g., :
> >> Although Old English had grammatical genders (masculine, feminine,
> >> and neuter; as in Modern German), modern English is not considered
> >> to have them and aside from a handful of nouns such as "god" and
> >> "goddess", "duke" and "duchess", "tiger" and "tigress", and "waiter"
> >> and "waitress", gender is found almost exclusively in pronouns and
> >> titles.
> >
> > A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
> > grammatical gender. How is that expressed?
> 
> "The duchess ate her lunch" as opposed to "The duchess ate its lunch"?

It seems reasonable to distinguish between Grammar and Vocabulary.
English has a vocabulary of natural-gender-specific (NGS) words
(ie based on sexual identity (Sex)) which were not necessarily tracked
by grammatical gender (GG) when English grammar had GG. Some of the
rules for generating NGS words are sexist in themselves, and many of
the words are also seen as sexist, so nowadays people are moving away
from using them, in favour of neutral words (flight attendant) or
newly minted ones (salesperson).

If you go back far in enough in English, you find the usual GG
system where the genders seem quite random and there are
*grammatical* rules on agreement, just as we still have for
number etc.

You wrote "her" because the person who ate their lunch was female,
and the *pronoun* has a gender based on the natural gender of the
subject, not on a hypothetical GG. For referring to a human, it's
discomforting to use a neuter pronoun. We can use "it" for a child
as long as we really don't know its sex. For an adult, there are
various devices like he/she and (s)he in writing, and breaking
number agreement in speech ("The burglar caught their sleeve
on the window catch.")

> German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".
> 
> >> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
> >> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
> >> > English the sun is male, the moon female

Think so, grammatically?

> >> 
> >> I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard
> >> an exchange like:
> >> 
> >>   Q: Is the sun up yet?
> >>   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.
> >
> > Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
> > Again, personification, not grammar.
> 
> "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
> And often is his gold complexion dimm'd"
> 
> Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.

Ironically, although the usual personification of the sun is male,
its GG was feminine. Likewise, the female moon had masculine GG.
I would guess the reason for the change has to do with education
in the Classics and the gods Helios and Selene.

Cheers,
David.

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wol's lists]

On 15/11/17 20:32, David Kastrup wrote:

David Wright  writes:


On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:

Hi Simon,





A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
grammatical gender. How is that expressed?


"The duchess ate her lunch" as opposed to "The duchess ate its lunch"?

German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".


Except that "her" refers to the person, not the noun ...

Mind you, I would feel happy with the following:
The cat ate its lunch (indeterminate gender)
The tom ate its lunch (we know it's male because it's a tom)
The queen ate its lunch (we know it's female because it's a queen)

But I suspect that's because we rarely use "tom" or "queen", and your 
mind substitutes the indeterminate "cat".



It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
English the sun is male, the moon female


I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard
an exchange like:

   Q: Is the sun up yet?
   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.


Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
Again, personification, not grammar.


"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd"

Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.

But again, personification, not grammar. To me that feels slightly weird 
- as far as I am concerned the sun is "it".


Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[J Martin Rushton]

On 15/11/17 14:59, Wols Lists wrote:
> On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:
>> Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar.
> 
> And the same boat is, so I understand, usually referred to BY THE CREW,
> as "he". So your own boat is "he", others are "she".
> 
> Cheers,
> Wol
> 
I've never heard of that before, certainly not in British maritime
usage.  The skipper of another vessel is (by default) assumed male, so
the sentence "She'll be on the rocks if he doesn't watch out" makes
perfect sense.



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Kastrup]

David Wright  writes:

> On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
>> Hi Simon,
>> 
>> > On Nov 14, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Simon Albrecht  wrote:
>> > 
>> >> Again, here English is very unusual because words do not have a gender
>> >> (the objects they refer to may, but that's different ... :-)
>> > 
>> > How would that be true?
>> 
>> See, e.g., :
>> Although Old English had grammatical genders (masculine, feminine,
>> and neuter; as in Modern German), modern English is not considered
>> to have them and aside from a handful of nouns such as "god" and
>> "goddess", "duke" and "duchess", "tiger" and "tigress", and "waiter"
>> and "waitress", gender is found almost exclusively in pronouns and
>> titles.
>
> A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
> grammatical gender. How is that expressed?

"The duchess ate her lunch" as opposed to "The duchess ate its lunch"?

German: "Das Mädchen aß seine Mahlzeit.".

>> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the
>> > same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In
>> > English the sun is male, the moon female
>> 
>> I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard
>> an exchange like:
>> 
>>   Q: Is the sun up yet?
>>   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.
>
> Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
> Again, personification, not grammar.

"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd"

Sonnet 18 by Shakespeare.

-- 
David Kastrup

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 11:56:07 (-0500), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi Simon,
> 
> > On Nov 14, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Simon Albrecht  wrote:
> > 
> >> Again, here English is very unusual because words do not have a gender
> >> (the objects they refer to may, but that's different ... :-)
> > 
> > How would that be true?
> 
> See, e.g., :
> Although Old English had grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and 
> neuter; as in Modern German), modern English is not considered to have them 
> and aside from a handful of nouns such as "god" and "goddess", "duke" and 
> "duchess", "tiger" and "tigress", and "waiter" and "waitress", gender is 
> found almost exclusively in pronouns and titles.

A duchess has gender, but I don't see that the word "duchess" has
grammatical gender. How is that expressed?

> > It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the same, 
> > but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In English the sun is 
> > male, the moon female
> 
> I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard an 
> exchange like:
> 
>   Q: Is the sun up yet?
>   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.

Neither have I, though there is the song "The sun has got his hat on".
Again, personification, not grammar.

Cheers,
David.

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[David Wright]

On Wed 15 Nov 2017 at 07:54:03 (+), Hilary Snaden wrote:
> On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> >Hi Simon,
> >
> >As a native English speaker, allow me to say that the examples you have
> >given are not grammatical gender but literary. English does not have such a
> >thing. Since there are no gendered definite or indefinite articles ('the',
> >'a') there is just no such concept in English grammar.
> >
> >Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar. As
> >for 'grammatic gender of death' - it's pure tosh, I am sorry. For a start,
> >death cannot have a gender as it is an abstract noun. Any such description
> >is purely literary. As an aside, although 'grammatic' is considered to be
> >in current use, most people now would use the form 'grammatical', the most
> >recent example of use in the Oxford English Dictionary II being 1889. [But
> >I have no objection to using older and obsolete words - in fact, I love it!]
> 
> It looks from the preceding post that the "grammatic gender of
> death" was a reference to a non-English language, in which case it
> may not be tosh at all. The rest of your points are sound. (Though I
> prefer "grammatic" myself. :-))

The statement was "Only yesterday I talked with an

American native english speaker

about the grammatic gender of death; she said it could be all three,
depending on circumstances…"

I can only make sense of this as "native speaker of American English".
Perhaps if America had been colonised several hundred years earlier,
they might have hung onto gender just as they have (I assume) with
"gotten" and some other forms that sound odd to English ears.

If English nouns have gender, it must be possible to give examples.
The sun and moon don't have grammatical gender, but they were
personified as male and female gods. That doesn't count.

Cheers,
David.

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Karlin High]

On 11/15/2017 10:56 AM, Kieren MacMillan wrote:

I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard an 
exchange like:

   Q: Is the sun up yet?
   A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.


Same here. My small exposure to Spanish was a shock: Okay, English has 
'a, an, and the'. Spanish has 'el, la, los, las, un, una, unas, unos' 
and lemons are male and oranges are female. Whose idea was that? Oh, 
wait. English is plenty quirky too, better not complain.


And the German dialect I'm familiar with is so heavily influenced by 
English, I wasn't even aware it had grammatic gender until after 
exposure to Spanish. It's been said that speakers of the dialect "use 
German words to make English sentences." All those Die, Das, Der, Den, 
etc often get replaced with one universal: D'


And even people who speak the dialect much better than I do, are using 
the grammatic genders unconsciously and are a little stunned when the 
concept's existence is pointed out. "You know, now that you mention 
it... I guess there is something like that going on."

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Urs Liska]

Am 15.11.2017 um 15:59 schrieb Wols Lists:

On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:

Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar.

And the same boat is, so I understand, usually referred to BY THE CREW,
as "he". So your own boat is "he", others are "she".


On this list, LilyPond is also very often referred to as "she".
Urs



Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Kieren MacMillan]

Hi Simon,

> On Nov 14, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Simon Albrecht  wrote:
> 
>> Again, here English is very unusual because words do not have a gender
>> (the objects they refer to may, but that's different ... :-)
> 
> How would that be true?

See, e.g., :
Although Old English had grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, and neuter; 
as in Modern German), modern English is not considered to have them and aside 
from a handful of nouns such as "god" and "goddess", "duke" and "duchess", 
"tiger" and "tigress", and "waiter" and "waitress", gender is found almost 
exclusively in pronouns and titles.

> It may seem so, because the articles for all three genders are the same, but 
> words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘it’. In English the sun is male, 
> the moon female

I've spoken English my entire life, and I have literally never heard an 
exchange like:

  Q: Is the sun up yet?
  A: Yes — he rose an hour ago.

=)

Cheers,
Kieren.


Kieren MacMillan, composer
‣ website: www.kierenmacmillan.info
‣ email: i...@kierenmacmillan.info


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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Wols Lists]

On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:
> Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar.

And the same boat is, so I understand, usually referred to BY THE CREW,
as "he". So your own boat is "he", others are "she".

Cheers,
Wol

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Hilary Snaden]

On 15/11/17 01:13, Andrew Bernard wrote:

Hi Simon,

As a native English speaker, allow me to say that the examples you have
given are not grammatical gender but literary. English does not have such a
thing. Since there are no gendered definite or indefinite articles ('the',
'a') there is just no such concept in English grammar.

Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar. As
for 'grammatic gender of death' - it's pure tosh, I am sorry. For a start,
death cannot have a gender as it is an abstract noun. Any such description
is purely literary. As an aside, although 'grammatic' is considered to be
in current use, most people now would use the form 'grammatical', the most
recent example of use in the Oxford English Dictionary II being 1889. [But
I have no objection to using older and obsolete words - in fact, I love it!]


It looks from the preceding post that the "grammatic gender of death" 
was a reference to a non-English language, in which case it may not be 
tosh at all. The rest of your points are sound. (Though I prefer 
"grammatic" myself. :-))



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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Helge Kruse]

>> It's the same with gender - and that can also be confusing especially
>> when making a diminutive. "Die Frau" (feminine), "Das Fraulein"
>> (neuter). "Die Mad", "Das Madchen" likewise.
>
>
> Actually, the base word is „Die Maid“. Mark Twain has famously and
> hilariously roasted the German language, partly for its use of grammatic
> gender :-)

The suffix "-chen" make the words to the diminutive
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive), In German this is always
neuter.
The article doesn't follow the base word but the diminutive.

Examples
der Tropfen - das Tröpfchen
die Maid - das Mädchen
der Ball - das Bällchen

Regards,
Helge

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Karlin High]

On 11/15/2017 2:44 AM, Jacques Menu Muzhic wrote:

This tends to denote the speaker as old or from the countryside.


Since we're already OT and having fun...

Here are some articles from my corner of the world about a French 
dialect surviving from 18th century fur traders, probably with fewer 
than 50 speakers left.


http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/paw-paw-french-two-20-somethings-bet-st-louis-can-save-vanishing-dialect#stream/0

This one has recordings of the spoken dialect and a traditional song:
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/1/9/missouri-s-paw-pawfrenchdialectfadingintosilence.html

This one has my favorite stories about the dialect:
https://www.stlmag.com/-ldquoY-rsquoAll-Vous-Autres-rdquo/

"When Dennis Stroughmatt did graduate work at the University of Quebec, 
he stayed with a French family. “Mais ça fait fraitte dehors,” he 
remarked casually one night, coming in from the chilly evening.


His host looked up. “What did you say?”

He’d said it was cold—literally, “it makes cold outside.” But the modern 
French word was froid, not fraitte.


“How do you know that word?” his host persisted.

“From Missouri,” Stroughmatt said, not realizing that fraitte hadn’t 
been used in contemporary French for centuries.


“That’s impossible,” the host declared. So Stroughmatt pulled out maps 
of Missouri and Illinois, and the two bent over them and read all the 
tiny town and river names. The man shook his head in amazement.


***

Once in the early ’90s, when he tried to rent a car at the Paris 
airport, intending to drive to the Normandy battlefield, he asked for un 
char, and a sitcom of frustrated “Monsieur, you cannot do that” and 
“Whaddya mean I can’t rent a car?” ensued. Char, short for chariot, is 
Old French for “cart.” What Stroughmatt didn’t know is that its modern 
meaning is not “car” but “tank.” The car-rental guy thought the crazy 
American wanted to rent a tank and drive it to Normandy.

--
Karlin High
Missouri, USA

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Blöchl Bernhard]

https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Maid
Maid, die
Wortart: ℹ Substantiv, feminin
Gebrauch: veraltet, noch spöttisch
https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Magd
Magd, die
Wortart: ℹ Substantiv, feminin
Häufigkeit: ℹ▮▮▯▯▯

For explanatory details of the semantic field of use please check the 
links to the "Duden". The Duden has a normativ power for the German 
language!


Annother usefull help may be
https://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Maid.html
https://www.dict.cc/?s=magd

Have fun with linguistic sophistry!

Regards



Am 14.11.2017 23:47, schrieb Simon Albrecht:

On 14.11.2017 18:54, Wols Lists wrote:

It's the same with gender - and that can also be confusing especially
when making a diminutive. "Die Frau" (feminine), "Das Fraulein"
(neuter). "Die Mad", "Das Madchen" likewise.


Actually, the base word is „Die Maid“. Mark Twain has famously and
hilariously roasted the German language, partly for its use of
grammatic gender :-)


  Again, here English is very
unusual because words do not have a gender (the objects they refer to
may, but that's different ... :-)


How would that be true? It may seem so, because the articles for all
three genders are the same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’,
or ‘it’. In English the sun is male, the moon female (like in most
languages, and unlike in German, where it’s the other way around).
Only yesterday I talked with an American native english speaker about
the grammatic gender of death; she said it could be all three,
depending on circumstances…

Best, Simon

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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Jacques Menu Muzhic]

Hello,

It’s funny that spoken french sometimes uses regional gender adaptations, such 
as ‘une homme’ (a man), ‘une avion’ (an airplane), or ‘un poire’ (a pear).

This tends to denote the speaker as old or from the countryside.

JM

> Le 15 nov. 2017 à 02:13, Andrew Bernard  a écrit :
> 
> Hi Simon,
> 
> As a native English speaker, allow me to say that the examples you have given 
> are not grammatical gender but literary. English does not have such a thing. 
> Since there are no gendered definite or indefinite articles ('the', 'a') 
> there is just no such concept in English grammar.
> 
> Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar. As 
> for 'grammatic gender of death' - it's pure tosh, I am sorry. For a start, 
> death cannot have a gender as it is an abstract noun. Any such description is 
> purely literary. As an aside, although 'grammatic' is considered to be in 
> current use, most people now would use the form 'grammatical', the most 
> recent example of use in the Oxford English Dictionary II being 1889. [But I 
> have no objection to using older and obsolete words - in fact, I love it!]
> 
> Andrew
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [OT] Grammatic gender

[Andrew Bernard]

Hi Simon,

As a native English speaker, allow me to say that the examples you have
given are not grammatical gender but literary. English does not have such a
thing. Since there are no gendered definite or indefinite articles ('the',
'a') there is just no such concept in English grammar.

Often people refer to boats as 'she', but that's not a part of grammar. As
for 'grammatic gender of death' - it's pure tosh, I am sorry. For a start,
death cannot have a gender as it is an abstract noun. Any such description
is purely literary. As an aside, although 'grammatic' is considered to be
in current use, most people now would use the form 'grammatical', the most
recent example of use in the Oxford English Dictionary II being 1889. [But
I have no objection to using older and obsolete words - in fact, I love it!]

Andrew
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[OT] Grammatic gender

[Simon Albrecht]

On 14.11.2017 18:54, Wols Lists wrote:

It's the same with gender - and that can also be confusing especially
when making a diminutive. "Die Frau" (feminine), "Das Fraulein"
(neuter). "Die Mad", "Das Madchen" likewise.


Actually, the base word is „Die Maid“. Mark Twain has famously and 
hilariously roasted the German language, partly for its use of grammatic 
gender :-)



  Again, here English is very
unusual because words do not have a gender (the objects they refer to
may, but that's different ... :-)


How would that be true? It may seem so, because the articles for all 
three genders are the same, but words are referred to by ‘he’, ‘she’, or 
‘it’. In English the sun is male, the moon female (like in most 
languages, and unlike in German, where it’s the other way around). Only 
yesterday I talked with an American native english speaker about the 
grammatic gender of death; she said it could be all three, depending on 
circumstances…


Best, Simon

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