# In languages with grammatical gender, are jokes/witticisms ever made that take advantage of this? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 12, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489 "2012-09-12T09:26:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jepflast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@jepflast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jepflast)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/1 "2012-09-12T09:26:26Z")
For example, in German, is it ever funny to switch a **der** for a **die** or **das** , and/or to change word endings for gender agreement? Or is this so trite and cheesy that it never happens after childhood? Or would such constructions just be nonsense to a native speaker? Also, is it funny (or embarrassing, etc.) when a native speaker accidentally gets the gender of a noun wrong, or he just doesn’t know it because it’s a rare word? I’d like to hear answers for any language with grammatical gender, of course, not just German. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/2 "2012-09-12T10:19:09Z")
Urdu. Yes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/3 "2012-09-12T10:28:36Z")
Spanish yes. There’s also words which change meaning depending on gendered ending and in some cases the jokes are so easy nobody over age 7 bothers with them: _pollo_ is chicken, _polla_ can be either a young hen or, more commonly, a penis (_huevos_, eggs is slang for testicles; a penis sits on top of two of them like a hen). ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/4 "2012-09-12T10:43:52Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Spanish yes. There’s also words which change meaning depending on gendered ending and in some cases the jokes are so easy nobody over age 7 bothers with them: _pollo_ is chicken, _polla_ can be either a young hen or, more commonly, a penis (_huevos_, eggs is slang for testicles; a penis sits on top of two of them like a hen). Or other words point to more adult slang. Calling a man _loca_ (feminine for _loco_/crazy, is calling that man gay (homosexual), stereotypically a very… flamboyant gay? Some words take either gender depending on how it was adopted or situations. _La computadora/el computador_/the computer are all the same, but some regions use one way, others use the other. _La mar/el mar_ is another one that changes. I’ve personally only have seen the feminine form more commonly in poetry and poetic prose, while the second form is the most commonly used. It is not embarrassing, but it is a mark of “poor education” when a native speaker gets some words wrong. A classic example in my region is _calor_. It’s supposed to go with _el_, but many use _la_ (incorrect form). Yes, it is taught at school that the proper way is _el calor_ and not _la calor_, but many don’t care. It annoys me when I speak someone and they do that. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/5 "2012-09-12T10:51:40Z")
I can’t think of any in Norwegian, but that could be because I have a mind like a sieve. I suspect if there are any they are childish/trite. Using the wrong gender for words is often used as a marker to show a character is an immigrant. ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/6 "2012-09-12T10:52:48Z")
German - no. I can’t think of any joke that relies on switching gender, and native speakers do not get genders wrong - there are rules to it, so it’s not that hard. It’s not like you have to remember the gender for every single word in existence. Endings for example almost always give you a clue. ETA: > [@naita](#): > > Using the wrong gender for words is often used as a marker to show a character is an immigrant. Also this. ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/7 "2012-09-12T10:55:43Z")
I’m a native English speaker, but I’ve learned French as well. I’m taking a job skills class that’s entirely in French. One of the francophone students in the class said to the teacher that she finds it cute when a non-native French speaker gets a word’s gender wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/8 "2012-09-12T11:08:07Z")
Not really in German, with one exception: there are some very few homonyms that differ by gender, and you can get a pun out of it if you exert yourself. Puns being one of the more puerile forms of humor, it’s only encountered infrequently in German. For example: _Leiter_ (n, f) = ladder, _Leiter_ (n, m) = leader, boss, supervisor, instructor \*Lasst uns die Leiter an die Wand stellen \*= Let’s lean the ladder against the wall _Lasst uns den Leiter an die Wand stellen_ = Let’s put the boss before a firing squad ---
**Author:** ![Pitchmeister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pitchmeister/32/3459_2.png) [@Pitchmeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pitchmeister)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/9 "2012-09-12T11:18:36Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > I’m a native English speaker, but I’ve learned French as well. I’m taking a job skills class that’s entirely in French. One of the francophone students in the class said to the teacher that she finds it cute when a non-native French speaker gets a word’s gender wrong. Now, French, that’s a totally different animal. Having only studied French for two years, genders are indeed one of the biggest problems for Germans, because not only do you have to distribute your neutral words between male and female, some of the words _switch genders_! Notably, “der Mond” and “die Sonne” becomes “la lune” and “le soleil”. Those crazy french… ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/10 "2012-09-12T12:21:16Z")
> [@naita](#): > > I can’t think of any in Norwegian, but that could be because I have a mind like a sieve. I’d say it’s because we don’t have grammatical genders like German and French anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/11 "2012-09-12T12:27:45Z")
I don’t know if this qualifies as a pun or joke, but when Emmy Noether was in her prime as a mathematician, some called her Der Noether, apparently a reference to her supposed masculine appearance. I suspect it was more a reaction to having a lecturer be a woman in the 1920s, when that was unknown. (There is a story that David Hilbert got her a position insisting that the university was not a public bath.) Let me mention also that gender is quite fluid. A friend spent her first 12 years in Italy in a small town about 100 miles from Rome. She mentioned that the genders of quite a number of words differed from that of the Roman dialect. Also let me mention one story a linguist told me. There was a French language feminist magazine published here and an author of one of the articles got criticized for having used too many masculine nouns in her article. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/12 "2012-09-12T13:27:13Z")
> [@Pitchmeister](#): > > German - no. I can’t think of any joke that relies on switching gender, and native speakers do not get genders wrong - there are rules to it, so it’s not that hard. > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > I don’t know if this qualifies as a pun or joke, but when Emmy Noether was in her prime as a mathematician, some called her Der Noether, apparently a reference to her supposed masculine appearance. Similarly, the only example of that kind of joke in German I can think of is that Angela Merkel sometimes is referred to as “das Merkel”, an allusion to her allegedly not very feminine features. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/13 "2012-09-12T13:35:01Z")
Hindi, yes. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/14 "2012-09-12T13:35:15Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > It is not embarrassing, but it is a mark of “poor education” when a native speaker gets some words wrong. A classic example in my region is _calor_. It’s supposed to go with _el_, but many use _la_ (incorrect form). Yes, it is taught at school that the proper way is _el calor_ and not _la calor_, but many don’t care. It annoys me when I speak someone and they do that. Shrug, it’s also often _la calor_ in my area (we know it’s a localism), and if you ask someone from Seville, they’ll tell you that _el calóo_ is nowhere near as hot as _la calóooooo_. Re. _loca_ for gays, I’ve heard it used to mean a very flamboyant gay man who can’t resist a temptation. And of course a _reina_ (queen) isn’t the same as a _reinona_ (drag queen). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/15 "2012-09-12T13:37:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Spanish yes. There’s also words which change meaning depending on gendered ending and in some cases the jokes are so easy nobody over age 7 bothers with them: _pollo_ is chicken, _polla_ can be either a young hen or, more commonly, a penis (_huevos_, eggs is slang for testicles; a penis sits on top of two of them like a hen). _Huevos_ = balls has filtered into American English, too. Not everyone will understand it, but many people do. _Cojones_ is more common, and of course is generally used more in the sense of “having courage” rather than referring to anatomy. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Panic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/don_t_panic/32/398_2.png) [@Don\_t\_Panic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Panic)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/16 "2012-09-12T13:45:21Z")
> [@Floater](#): > > I’d say it’s because we don’t have grammatical genders like German and French anymore. Actually, to clear this up, what Norwegian doesn’t have is noun-adjective agreement. However, as with most good card-carrying Indo-European languages (with English as, I believe, the sole exception in Europe), nouns certainly have gender, and can either be male, female or neuter\*. I can’t think of any jokes either, though. (\*Although, as a side note, it seems like Norwegian really only wants to have two genders, like Danish and Swedish, not three. As a result, the feminine gender is a bit retarded, as it were. That’s not really funny, though. Also, please don’t quote that out of context.) ---
**Author:** ![grama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@grama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grama)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/17 "2012-09-12T16:43:11Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Spanish yes. There’s also words which change meaning depending on gendered ending and in some cases the jokes are so easy nobody over age 7 bothers with them: _pollo_ is chicken, _polla_ can be either a young hen or, more commonly, a penis (_huevos_, eggs is slang for testicles; a penis sits on top of two of them like a hen). Very insteresting!, I’ve always wandered about the origin of “polla” for penis, it’s so simple I’m baffled I didn’t figure it out before. This is not related but, all of the spanish people I’ve met in Chile find it hilarious that one of the 2 main lottery companies in the country is called “La Polla Chilena de Beneficiencia” :D. > [@KarlGrenze](#): > > Or other words point to more adult slang. Calling a man _loca_ (feminine for _loco_/crazy, is calling that man gay (homosexual), stereotypically a very… flamboyant gay? Yeah, a _loca_ is in fact a very flamoyant man (not necessarily gay, although that’s usually the case). It’s usually used in demeaning way. > [@KarlGrenze](#): > > It is not embarrassing, but it is a mark of “poor education” when a native speaker gets some words wrong. A classic example in my region is _calor_. It’s supposed to go with _el_, but many use _la_ (incorrect form). Yes, it is taught at school that the proper way is _el calor_ and not _la calor_, but many don’t care. It annoys me when I speak someone and they do that. I can only speak about Santiago but, yes, it is a mark of poor education, but as Nava pointed out, it can vary from location (although I’ve never been anywhere where it’s “accepted”, except for very rural places where people are generally poorly educated). ---
**Author:** ![grama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@grama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grama)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/18 "2012-09-12T16:53:56Z")
Missed the edit window. Also, the use of the feminine form is often used to mock people. For example, is someone says something smugly you may answer “ella, la \_\_\_\_” like “I got a perfect score in the test” - “Ella, la matea\*”. I’ve been told that this is very Chilean and is not done in other countries, I’ve also been told that the specific tone of voice used with this kind of phrase isn’t used in other places. If you want to know what kind of tone I’m talking about, it’s something like this. [Hay Patria Chilenos: Sushi - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgOT9HeAsDk&t=10s) \*Mateo/a is slang for nerd/teacher’s pet ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/19 "2012-09-12T16:57:08Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > For example: _Leiter_ (n, f) = ladder, _Leiter_ (n, m) = leader, boss, supervisor, instructor So _der Leiter der Leiter_ would be the supervisor of the ladder? ---
**Author:** ![Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4bbf92/32.png) [@Heart\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heart_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489/20 "2012-09-12T16:59:32Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Urdu. Yes. > [@Anaamika](#): > > Hindi, yes. You guys are killing me here. Could you elaborate, please? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/in-languages-with-grammatical-gender-are-jokes-witticisms-ever-made-that-take-advantage-of-this/634489.md?page=2)