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LDiCesare · #1 March 11th, 2008, 05:34 AM

Quote:

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 · #2 March 11th, 2008, 08:54 AM

About half and half in spanish too.

kasnavada · #3 March 11th, 2008, 09:01 AM

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

!

Kristoffer O · #4 March 11th, 2008, 01:45 PM

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 · #5 March 11th, 2008, 05:59 PM

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 · #6 March 11th, 2008, 06:09 PM

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 · #7 March 12th, 2008, 01:06 PM

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 ?

JZ · #8 March 12th, 2008, 01:10 PM

Now now, there are catwomans around