LLLAMA server

[lch]

llamabeast said:
[I should explain that one of my old housemates, who was Dutch, would often describe inanimate objects as he or she - deliberately, I should say - and it was sometimes hilarious. So now I sometimes do the same myself.]

It's in the language. Only in English are all inanimate objects referred to as "it". In German, most things are masculine, but can be anything: the spoon is a "he", the fork is a "she", the knife is an "it". In french, most things are feminine, I think.

[Aezeal]

We dutch are so funny

[LDiCesare]

lch said:In french, most things are feminine, I think.

It's more about half masculine, half feminine. But there is no neutral gender in French.

[Torin]

About half and half in spanish too.

[kasnavada]

English is an odd language, not the other ones. It refers to inanimate objects without gender !

[Kristoffer O]

There are two forms of 'it' in swedish.

A computer is a 'den'.
A program is a 'det'.

No one can explain the difference (not me anyway), but everyone knows the right one to use. Foreigners never know, and can easily be ridiculed

[Tuidjy]

Bulgarian has the three genders (masculine/feminine/neuter) but not all inanimate
objects are neuter. There is no hard and fast rule. A computer is a 'he', a
calculator a 'she', and an abacus an 'it'. Frankly, I think English's way
is better. At least it makes sense, and you can express that an object is
special in some way by assigning a gender to it, as sailors did with ships.

[Heinrich]

As in french my friend...

Mhhh, I fear there isn't any neutral genre at all

Anyway, that fork can't truly be neutral

[kasnavada]

Boats are always referred as "she" AFAIK, in both english or French. Probably because most if not all sailors are men.

I actually think that the english way doesn't make sense. I mean, a cat has neutral gender (poor cat...). How can a language that consider that animals have no gender make sense ?