Pigeon wrote:
On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 10:54:24PM -0500, Ron Johnson wrote:Being a native speaker of American, I've always wondered - What is the purpose of "gender" in grammar/language?Argh, this does my head in too. Especially when you come across things like all the words for female genitals in lots of languages having the masculine gender. Work that one out. Also, what do the advocates of "gender-neutral" language do in German? And what do they do in French?
not sure about those countries but in slovakia (with 'genderic' language) there is no such thing as gender neutral. since everything has gender it doesn't really stand out when something has gender when related to person - in english it feels 'special' when you refer to something as he or she, it sticks out so you find people who are bothered by it.
same in much less words: mu erik