4 ms·

In languages with gendered nouns, countries, cars, boats, and houses are almost always female because they contain humans (and females have a womb). English do

In languages with gendered nouns, countries, cars, boats, and houses are almost always female because they contain humans (and females have a womb). English doesn't have gendered nouns, but this linguistic quirk runs deep enough in human psychology that we do sometimes use female pronouns to describe these things. Examples: "She's a beauty" (of a car), or "America and her allies."

alostpuppy 4y ago
That is fascinating. It’s more or less like me trying to use the metric system.
sbaiddn 4y ago
"because they contain humans (and females have a womb)." While I like the theory, its cute, I dont know that that's true. L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish. And its easy for a native speaker in either language to come up with numerous examples. In fact gender really is just grammar. We shouldn't see much into it trying to project ourselves into it. Otherwise, why can the same object have different genders through synonyms? Again: La macchina L'automobile. La yerba (granted in Spanish its lost its meaning as grass) El cesped La nave Il barco La embarcación El bote Or changes from the addition of a mere diminutive: Il banco La bancarella Il barco La barchetta Gender is just a classification, largely binary (although Spanish retains the neuter) that got the unfortunate sexual labels of male and female
- mdrzn 4y ago
  > L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish. What? LA automobile is female. > Il barco La barchetta "IL barco" doesn't mean anything, it's "LA barca" which, again, is female. I'd say that generally speaking "it's female when they contain people" is correct, but of course not always (LO ufficio = the office).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
tamirzb 4y ago
This sounds interesting but I don't think it holds true? Going by the languages I have some knowledge of, that doesn't hold true for Portuguese, where the word "country" itself is masculine but the truth is different countries have different genders. I guess it would be the same for other latin languages? (at least for Spanish). German is also the same but the word "country" is neutral. I guess it does somewhat hold true for my native language, Hebrew, where all the words you specified but "house" are feminine. So I guess it might also hold true for Arabic then?
causi 4y ago
That makes sense, except for the fact that in English, gendering inanimate objects is nearly always female. If you have a busted computer, you might say "I'm gonna resolder this pad and then she'll run just fine" but you'd almost never say "I'm gonna reseat this connector and then he'll boot up".

alostpuppy 4y ago

That is fascinating. It’s more or less like me trying to use the metric system.

sbaiddn 4y ago

"because they contain humans (and females have a womb)." While I like the theory, its cute, I dont know that that's true. L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish. And its easy for a native speaker in either language to come up with numerous examples. In fact gender really is just grammar. We shouldn't see much into it trying to project ourselves into it. Otherwise, why can the same object have different genders through synonyms? Again: La macchina L'automobile. La yerba (granted in Spanish its lost its meaning as grass) El cesped La nave Il barco La embarcación El bote Or changes from the addition of a mere diminutive: Il banco La bancarella Il barco La barchetta Gender is just a classification, largely binary (although Spanish retains the neuter) that got the unfortunate sexual labels of male and female

mdrzn 4y ago
> L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish. What? LA automobile is female. > Il barco La barchetta "IL barco" doesn't mean anything, it's "LA barca" which, again, is female. I'd say that generally speaking "it's female when they contain people" is correct, but of course not always (LO ufficio = the office).
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

tamirzb 4y ago

This sounds interesting but I don't think it holds true? Going by the languages I have some knowledge of, that doesn't hold true for Portuguese, where the word "country" itself is masculine but the truth is different countries have different genders. I guess it would be the same for other latin languages? (at least for Spanish). German is also the same but the word "country" is neutral. I guess it does somewhat hold true for my native language, Hebrew, where all the words you specified but "house" are feminine. So I guess it might also hold true for Arabic then?

causi 4y ago

That makes sense, except for the fact that in English, gendering inanimate objects is nearly always female. If you have a busted computer, you might say "I'm gonna resolder this pad and then she'll run just fine" but you'd almost never say "I'm gonna reseat this connector and then he'll boot up".