This is such an English problem. Not that variations of this argument don’t happen in other European languages. Just, English is so earnest about gender when we do use it, since we don’t use it all the time.
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I would like to point out that in German, any word modified by the diminutive suffix -chen (often with a vowel shift as well) becomes grammatically neuter, whatever the gender of the non-diminutive form.
I would like to, but I’m not fluent in German, so I could be very wrong.
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In French, there are two genders: masculine and feminine. In many cases, there is just one standard word for a species of animal; this word has a gender, which is used regardless of the sex of the animal. If you need to state the critter’s sex, tack on an adjective or something.
(Of course, certain species, like humans and neats, have different words for the different sexes and even different functions, and avoid this.)
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Both of these usages would drive English speakers up the wall, because, again, we tend to think gender is a real big deal.
You mean we think it’s a big deal in disputes surrounding it.
I’d suggest that a “gendered” language like Spanish makes a big deal out of it in that it can carry interesting nuance. For example, el mar and la mar both mean “the ocean” but there is a connotation with la mar that the speaker loves the sea or is waxing poetic over it, at least.
Of course, in English, gender has to do with words for males, females, or both. In Spanish, French, etc., the semantic concept is not so tied to “real” gender. It does not sound strange to those langs’ native speakers to say, for example, la soldat.
Hmm, I tried to edit in the disclaimer that I am not a native speaker of Sp or Fr; but rather, a linguist who has studied gender and other semantic concepts. Nava, and others, can let me know if I’m wrong.
Because in Modern English, gendered language is pretty much tied exclusively to physical sex. That is not true of other languages that have a far more formalized system of grammatical gender.
Listening to NPR yesterday, they used the word “transgender” … we’re going to need a new set of pronouns anyway … let’s just re-work the whole system while we’re at it. It’s language, it’s supposed to change.
[bf mine]
A tangent but: When I moved from CA to New England, I was surprised every time I heard women referred to as “girls” or “ladies.” It’s as though the 70s never “took” here.
Historically. Nowadays, mankind has a distinctly patriarchal feel to it. And anyway, her complaint was being referred to as man or girl. I assume people are not in the habit of referring to her as mankind so your complaint’s a little out of left field.
And it’s patently ridiculous to argue that “the masculine embraces the feminine” or whatever delightfully patronizing phrase is in vogue now as a little bit of thinking should make clear to you.