Questions regarding the grammatical gender of English words.
84
votes
19answers
8k views
What is a feminine version of 'guys'?
I commonly use the word 'guys' to refer to a group of males colloquially. It's colloquial but not rude, off putting, condescending, patronizing (though I wouldn't use it with a group of men at a board ...
27
votes
6answers
2k views
A word that says a person is both female and your friend
It's often confusing for me to talk about my friends, especially my female friends. This is because in Dutch there are words for both male ("vriend") and female ("vriendin") friends. In English ...
26
votes
6answers
19k views
Is it correct to use “their” instead of “his or her”?
Is this sentence grammatically correct?
Anyone who loves the English language should have a copy of this book in their bookcase.
or should it be:
Anyone who loves the English language should ...
20
votes
4answers
3k views
Is it a good practice to refer to countries, ships etc using the feminine form?
While talking about ships and countries, is it a good practice to use the feminine form? For example:
"Her economy" - while referring to a country's economy
"Her flag (or deck etc)" - while ...
18
votes
1answer
2k views
Why don't English nouns have grammatical gender?
English nouns — other than those with natural gender, e.g. people or animals — do not generally have grammatical gender, and so are referred to as "it" rather than "he" or "she".
However, modern ...
16
votes
2answers
3k views
14
votes
1answer
581 views
Did the English language ever have noun genders?
And if so, how did they differentiate between male, female or neuter nouns? Did English ever have gender-specific (in)definite articles? (like der/die/das in German)
14
votes
4answers
635 views
Advice for using multiple same-gender personal pronouns in the same sentence
I have often struggled with sentences that contain two characters of the same gender. For example, if there are two females, Alice and Carol, then the following sentence can be confusing.
Alice ...
13
votes
2answers
314 views
Is it acceptable to write “(wo)man”?
I just read this: It’s a (wo)man’s world out there.
Is this an accepted approach to gender-neutral language, or is it just used when humor is intended?
13
votes
2answers
548 views
Is “so” more feminine than “very”?
Many Japanese textbooks of English mention the "feminine 'so'": the use of "so" for "very" is more typical of a feminine speaker. I don't think this is true in the US (I learned English living in ...
12
votes
8answers
1k views
Are there sentences in languages which use grammatical gender that lose meaning when translated into English?
English nouns which don't denote people or animals with natural gender do not (apart from a few rare examples) use grammatical gender. So for example, "table" is always an "it" in English, whereas it ...
12
votes
2answers
5k views
Why is a woman a “widow” and a man a “widower”?
There are lots of words that have male and female forms, and usually there are alternate suffixes to the words which indicate the gender; for example, "waiter" vs. "waitress", "mister" vs. "mistress", ...
12
votes
3answers
1k views
Why are there different ways of indicating gender for animals?
Why are there different ways of indicating gender for animals?
For instance, by inflexion we get:
lion (male) & lioness (female)
where the female is distinguished from the male. Here the male is ...
11
votes
4answers
351 views
When referring to a noun, when does the gender matter?
In most languages, gender plays a much more important role than in English. Nevertheless, it is possible to refer to a noun using its gender.
The ship was launched on 4 October 1853. Tayleur left ...
10
votes
4answers
5k views
What is the male equivalent of “mistress” in formal English?
The mistress definition, Oxford dictionary
a woman having an extramarital sexual relationship, esp. with a married man
I am looking for the male equivalent of 'mistress' as defined above. Some ...
10
votes
5answers
884 views
What is the gender of an aircraft?
I know that a ship is always referred using "she", but what about aircraft? What should we use when we're referring to aircraft? Is it the same for automobile?
10
votes
4answers
529 views
Do words for male animals include those which are castrated?
English has distinct words for the male and female of many common animal species. For example, we have bull / cow, rooster / hen, ram / ewe, stallion / mare, boar / sow, man / woman.
However, we ...
9
votes
3answers
2k views
What's the difference between “blond” and “blonde”?
I hear all the time that one word is for males and the other is for females but I'm skeptical...
8
votes
5answers
766 views
“She left me for another woman” or “She left me for a woman”?
Assuming a male speaker is referring to an ex-partner, which of the following is more correct?
She left me for another woman
She left me for a woman
The phrase She left me for another ...
8
votes
2answers
339 views
Why use the term “Sister sites” instead of “Brother sites”?
This came up recently on programmers.SE, when someone (a Russian, presumably non-native English speaker) asked why we used the term "sister sites", instead of "brother sites". Of course, I'm a native ...
7
votes
1answer
470 views
Where does gender attach in “brotherly/sisterly”?
If Leia loves her brother Luke, does she feel sisterly love (because she is his sister) or brotherly love (because he is her brother)?
7
votes
1answer
2k views
Female Actor or Actress
I've recently and very annoyingly noticed the word actor used for female actresses in the Indian print media.
I have a few questions :
a) Is this the correct usage of the word?
b) Is this an ...
6
votes
4answers
525 views
Gender-neutral Forms
What is the unisex form of a word like fisherman? Do you have to use fisherman and fisherwoman separately, or is fisherperson acceptable? I couldn’t find a dictionary with the word …
In general, what ...
6
votes
5answers
1k views
What is the male equivalent of “damsel”?
Is there a male equivalent of "damsel" ?
damsel (dam·sel)
Pronunciation: /ˈdamzəl/
noun archaic or literary
a young unmarried woman.
(from OxfordDictionaries.com)
6
votes
2answers
707 views
On the specifics of illegitimate children
Is there a feminine form of the word bastard? It seems like bastard is a word that’s applied to male children only.
6
votes
3answers
5k views
Is there a feminine equivalent of “emasculate”?
e·mas·cu·late
Deprive (a man) of his male role or identity
Is there a female equivalent? I came up with "efemulate" but this sounds strange.
6
votes
2answers
260 views
Why are “he”, “she”, and “it” distinct in the singular, but all “they” in the plural?
Other languages have gender-specific third-person plural pronouns (e.g., ellos and ellas in Spanish). English does not, despite the masculine/feminine/neuter distinction being obligatory in the ...
6
votes
4answers
193 views
“His head” or “their head”?
I was disappointed to see a favorite storybook from my childhood has been edited. (Harry, the Dirty Dog; ISBN-13: 978-0064430098) I distinctly remember the text written as follows:
...but ...
5
votes
4answers
1k views
How to avoid sexist language?
I have observed that I use a lot of sexist terms; it comes naturally to me! I have resolved to be "perfectly" non-sexist from now onwards. I would like to know how to avoid sexist language.
Yes, ...
5
votes
4answers
5k views
Should I use “his/her” or “its”? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicates:
Gender neutral pronoun
Is it correct to use “their” instead of “his or her”?
I am writing a software documentation. I have this issue: I am ...
5
votes
2answers
165 views
Plural of “Animus/Anima”
What is the plural of the words “animus” and “anima”? In any context (literary, Jung psychology, apothecary etc.). Is there English v. Latin differences? Interwebs are no help: versions differ from ...
5
votes
1answer
133 views
Why do newspapers use the terms “women voters” and “women candidates”?
I've noticed that when discussing political demographics or candidates, many reporters use the phrases "women voters" and "women candidates". This feels horribly awkward grammatically. It's hard to ...
4
votes
5answers
399 views
Using “she” with gender-neutral nouns
The song “Frozen” from Madonna’s Ray of Light (1998) contains the lyrics:
Love is a bird, she needs to fly,
Let all the hurt inside of you die.
Does she refer to bird or love? And why is it ...
4
votes
1answer
163 views
What is the origin of “-ix” as a feminine variation?
Some words are made feminine by altering the suffix to be -ix. Examples:
dominator → dominatrix
executor → executrix
rector → rectrix
What is the origin of this variation?
From my 5 years of ...
4
votes
2answers
936 views
A man's breast vs. a woman's breasts
Why is it that breast is used when referring to a man's chest, but breasts is used for a woman's? Could breast also mean a woman's chest, or do breasts have to be used when referring to a woman's ...
4
votes
2answers
265 views
Is the English Language becoming more generic, in the sense that English is distinguishing less between masculine and feminine?
To clarify: what I mean is that in Australia for instance there is a trend in English to use words that do not distinguish between men and women. E.g. Chairperson instead of Chairman.
So the question ...
4
votes
1answer
307 views
What is the word for nouns with gender-specific forms?
Thought I would try a question with visual aid.*
The image below shows Claire Danes, "Actor", in a kiosk poster for the Met. The variation in usage between actor and actress for female thespians is ...
3
votes
2answers
2k views
Is the word “women's” a typo?
My browser's spellcheck says it is, but I can't figure out why. Is Firefox sexist?
3
votes
1answer
679 views
Difference between female and male usage [closed]
What explains the difference of a de facto larger frequency of vowels of one writer compared to another? In the statistics data I examined, a vowel had higher probability in the text from the female ...
3
votes
3answers
1k views
Should I use “authoress” for a feminine author?
Often I come across the term "female author" rather than "authoress". Which is the correct usage? "Female author" sounds wrong to me as other words that end in "-or" take a sex.
3
votes
5answers
524 views
Why we say the earth is beautiful not handsome?
Why we say the world is beautiful?
Can't we say the world is handsome?
3
votes
2answers
160 views
Is the formation “[s]he” overly distracting?
Does the use of "[s]he" as a gender-neutral pronoun prompt eye-rolling in the reader or is it generally accepted? I know it cannot be pronounced, but it seems to me a helpful contraction in written ...
3
votes
3answers
249 views
Avoiding the use of “the reader”?
I'm writing a response essay to Medieval Women's Visionary writings that possess power. In this essay I'm supposed to explain how two writers, that I've picked to write about, possess or don't possess ...
3
votes
2answers
605 views
Difference in male vs female use of the English language
Is there a somewhat reliable (like, for example 70% success rate) way to determine whether a paragraph in the English language was written by a man or a woman (adult male/female)? Any credible ...
3
votes
3answers
378 views
She/he to refer a user [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Reason for the current trend to use «she» as the gender-neutral pronoun?
Can the feminine pronouns be gender-neutral?
Is there a correct gender-neutral, singular ...
2
votes
3answers
215 views
Female equivalent of “creator”?
Female equivalent of "creator"?
Or is it unisex?
I'm a programmer and I named a variable "creatingFunction", which sounds even worse than "creatorFunction".
2
votes
3answers
333 views
Personal pronouns for animals
In my native language German, every animal has an article. This is understandable, if one wants for example to distinguish a male pig (boar) from a female pig (sow). But if one just talks about the ...
2
votes
3answers
260 views
Noun genders in Moby Dick
English nouns do not have grammatical gender. But in Moby Dick, some nouns do seem to have gender, like "ship" (feminine) and "whale" (masculine). Some passages:
And now the time of tide has come; ...
2
votes
3answers
360 views
Gender, generally associated with “toad” characters in English fiction and folklore
Common noun for a toad ("жаба") is of female gender in Russian.
From all English literature that I read, I can remember only one toad-like character: Mr. Toad from The Wind in The Willows, and he is ...
2
votes
3answers
178 views
Perception of subjects with indeterminate gender [closed]
Being German, I am used to getting information about the gender of a sentence's subject in the same sentence:
Meine Freundin mag Bücher.
Here it is immediately clear that it's a female friend of ...
