Re: [ot] Linux gender in French
On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 01:05:54PM -0800, Cam Ellison wrote:
> The main point is, I think, that regularity is a fiction, but we keep
> trying to attain it because it makes communicating easier. Gender in
> language has nothing to do with men and women. It's a convenient
> fiction employed to determine whether to say "la" or "le", and it is
> imperfect. We decide where to put things by consensus (l'Academie
> Francaise notwithstanding), though the creator of a term probably has
> an advantage.
>
> Don't let it get you down,
>
> Cam
Fancy way of saying "it's dumb but we do it anyway" :-)
We all intellectualize the impefect
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