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Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Sun Aug 11, 2013 9:31 pm
by bamaboy56
And I
wonder if the French are into political correctness, since all
their nouns are either masculine or feminine?
It must be a Latin thang since Spanish likewise has feminine and masculine nouns. I've tried to teach my wife a little Spanish over the years. She gets frustrated over objects being gender specific. Sorry, that's just the nature of the beast.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 1:40 pm
by LukeJavan8
I remember taking French and the prof early on saying there
were no 'neuter' nouns in the language. I was
flumoxed to the utmost. It soon became understandable,
but at first: wow!

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 10:36 pm
by Perry Lassiter
German does have neuter nouns, which only adds something else to worry about: die, den, or der?

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 12:25 am
by bamaboy56
In Spanish there are even some words that change gender depending on whether they're singular or plural. The word "agua" (water) comes immediately to mind. The singular "el agua" (the water) uses the male "el", while the plural "las aguas" (the waters) uses the plural female "las". There are other words, but that's the first one that comes to mind. I suppose every language has its foibles.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 12:26 am
by Slava
To add to the confusion, Russian has a plural for one. :shock:

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 6:57 am
by call_copse
My wife occasionally struggles with his and hers and she and he, as Swahili does not have these concepts. The possessives etc are all gender neutral - I imagine that makes life a little easier.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 3:44 pm
by Perry Lassiter
In American PC, we authors try to avoid the generic "he" in a number of ways. Often we write with "they," meaning whoever the person is of whatever gender. Some use he or she, and others alternate he and she, either method jarring me. I often end up recasting the sentence to avoid the personal pronoun entirely.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:24 pm
by MTC
Here's a piece about the "he, she, or they" controversy from Oxford Dictionaries:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/he- ... ersus-they

If we were all neutered it might be easier.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 9:33 pm
by Slava
Here's a piece about the "he, she, or they" controversy from Oxford Dictionaries:

http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/he- ... ersus-they

If we were all neutered it might be easier.
It would most definitely cut down on the excess population.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 10:50 pm
by Perry Lassiter
If we were all neutered, only some things would be easier.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 3:23 pm
by LukeJavan8
I'm not game for that idea.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2013 7:47 pm
by MTC
Yes, the surgical cure is far worse than the grammatical disease.
Just another twisted effort at humor on my part. In fact, I have developed an orthopedic condition as a result of such "twisted" efforts.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:08 pm
by Perry Lassiter
Slava, how does the plural one in Russian work? When would one use it?

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 2:17 pm
by Slava
Slava, how does the plural one in Russian work? When would one use it?
Glasses, ie spectacles, are ochki, so you could have odni ochki.

Re: Dudgeon

Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 5:55 pm
by LukeJavan8
Odni ochki: I don't think we'd better go there, nope.