Latino vs. Latina

[Dänk 42Ø]

Latino vs. Latina
By Dänk 42Ø
16 May 2013

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was criticized during her
confirmation hearing for having described herself as a "Wise Latina" in
the past. Whether she is wise is a matter of opinion, but she is
definitely of Latin-American heritage.

The problem here is that the term "Latina" is sexist by the standards of
American political correctness. English is one of the few languages that
has no gender inflection. There are no "male" or "female" nouns like in
Spanish or German.

There are still a handful of gender-specific nouns in English: Man and
woman, waiter and waitress, steward and stewardess, murderer and
murderess, comedian and comedienne, actor and actress, author and
authoress etc. The feminine versions of these words have largely been
purged from modern American English, with the masculine version becoming
neuter.

Every enlightened liberal knows that calling Angelina Jolie or Uma
Thurman an "actress" is sexist and forbidden. All Hollywood celebrities
are "actors." There is even a movement to eliminate the "best female
actor" category from the Academy Awards, since men and womyn (and
transgendered she-thangs) are equal and should not be differentiated.

I do not disagree with this trend, but I can't help but notice that
enlightened lily-white liberals are hypocrites for demanding the
neuterization of the American-English language, while happily importing
sexist gendered words from other languages, in this case Spanish.

The wonderful thing about American-English is its ability to absorb new
words from other languages, which is why it has become THE most popular
international language. For example, words like "karma" and "taco" are
co-opted directly from Hindi and Spanish, something which is not
permissible in languages like French.

Thus, it is illogical to absorb a foreign word like "Latino" while
keeping a gender distinction that does not exist in other American-
English words. The modern grammar rule is to use the historical
masculine form for male and female alike. Since she spoke of
"herself" (a rare exception to the neuter rule I refer to) in American-
English, Sonia Sotomayor should have used the term "Wise LatinO", not
"LatinA".

Furthermore, if adhering to foreign language grammar conventions is so
important to lily-white liberals, so much so that they are willing to
throw their deliberate neuterization of American-English grammar under
the proverbial bus, then they should go all the way and use foreign
capitalization and punctuation conventions. In Spanish, "latino" and
"latina" (and other ethnic-nationality nouns and adjectives) are always
lower case, unless they begin a sentence. If las reglas del idioma
español are followed correctly, Sra. Sotomayor is a wise "latina." In
American-English, she is always a "Latino" (wise or not).

[R H Draney]

=?iso-8859-1?b?RORuayA0Mtg=?= filted:

>
>Thus, it is illogical to absorb a foreign word like "Latino" while
>keeping a gender distinction that does not exist in other American-
>English words. The modern grammar rule is to use the historical
>masculine form for male and female alike. Since she spoke of
>"herself" (a rare exception to the neuter rule I refer to) in American-
>English, Sonia Sotomayor should have used the term "Wise LatinO", not
>"LatinA".

I look forward to hearing what King Elizabeth has to say on the matter....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[CDB]

On 18/05/2013 1:31 AM, R H Draney wrote:
> D�nk 42� filted:

>> Thus, it is illogical to absorb a foreign word like "Latino" while
>> keeping a gender distinction that does not exist in other
>> American- English words. The modern grammar rule is to use the
>> historical masculine form for male and female alike. Since she
>> spoke of "herself" (a rare exception to the neuter rule I refer to)
>> in American- English, Sonia Sotomayor should have used the term
>> "Wise LatinO", not "LatinA".

> I look forward to hearing what King Elizabeth has to say on the
> matter....r

She went all quiet a while back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Rex

(My newsclient will post to a maximum of three groups.)

[Christian Weisgerber]

Dￜnk 42ￜ <da...@ak47.com> wrote:

> English is one of the few languages that has no gender inflection.

Whoa. Have a look here:

http://wals.info/feature/30A

(Never mind that the creators of this database actually assign
English to the three-gender bin.)

--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de

[Peter Brooks]

On May 18, 1:44 pm, na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>
>
> (Never mind that the creators of this database actually assign
> English to the three-gender bin.)
>

How many of these bins are there and why do people assign languages to
them rather than simply throwing them away?

I suppose that I assign eggshells to the bin, but I've never described
it that way myself. I'd expect that doing it properly would involve
some sort of verbal instruction; 'Now, eggshells, that you've been
emptied, your new, temporary, assignment is to occupy this bin'...
Something like that.

[Percival P. Cassidy]

On 05/18/13 01:17 am, Dänk 42Ø wrote:
> Latino vs. Latina
> By Dänk 42Ø
> 16 May 2013
>
> Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was criticized during her
> confirmation hearing for having described herself as a "Wise Latina" in
> the past. Whether she is wise is a matter of opinion, but she is
> definitely of Latin-American heritage.
>
> The problem here is that the term "Latina" is sexist by the standards of
> American political correctness. English is one of the few languages that
> has no gender inflection. There are no "male" or "female" nouns like in
> Spanish or German.

"Masculine" and "feminine," surely, rather than "male and "female."

> There are still a handful of gender-specific nouns in English: Man and
> woman, waiter and waitress, steward and stewardess, murderer and
> murderess, comedian and comedienne, actor and actress, author and
> authoress etc. The feminine versions of these words have largely been
> purged from modern American English, with the masculine version becoming
> neuter.

<snip>

For a long time "man" was considered "generic" (or perhaps "common"
gender rather than "neuter"), but nowadays many women object to that
usage, with the result that even hymns and Bible translations have often
been revised to accommodate their concerns. (I've sometimes wondered
what German "feminists" do, when even "Mensch" [= human being of either
gender] is still grammatically masculine: "der Mensch.")

I have never heard the term "steward" applied to a female, What were
"stewards" and "stewardesses" on aircraft are now "flight attendants."
Similarly, "waiters" and "waitresses" are now "servers" or,
collectively, "waitstaff"; I've seen the words "waitron" and
"waitperson," but I don't know whether anyone uses them.

Perce

[Leslie Danks]

Austrians talk about "Menscha" meaning several female humans, but I don't
know if it has a plural.

> I have never heard the term "steward" applied to a female, What were
> "stewards" and "stewardesses" on aircraft are now "flight attendants."
> Similarly, "waiters" and "waitresses" are now "servers" or,
> collectively, "waitstaff"; I've seen the words "waitron" and
> "waitperson," but I don't know whether anyone uses them.

--
Les (BrE)
"... be skeptical of government guidelines. The Indians learned not to trust
our government and neither should you." (Fallon & Enig)

[Whiskers]

["Followup-To:" header set to alt.usage.english.]

On 2013-05-18, CDB <belle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/05/2013 1:31 AM, R H Draney wrote:

>> Dänk 42Ø filted:

My setup blocks incoming articles posted to more than three newsgroups. My
curiosity was piqued enough to drive me to a public usenet archive to find
the original post <http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi?ID=136888307400>
and the one being replied to
<http://al.howardknight.net/msgid.cgi?ID=136888295300> so that I could
follow the exchange.

I've set the Followup-To header to alt.usage.english only; I don't
read the other groups originally posted to, and this one seems to be the
most appropriate for the linguistic aspects of the question.

I'm struck by the usage of "Latin" as an adjective applicable to those
parts of the Americas claimed by explorers from Portugal and Spain, and to
people with ancestral or cultural links to those places. (Apart, it seems,
from those areas later acquired by the USA).

"Latin American, adj. and n.". OED Online. March 2013. Oxford University
Press. 18 May 2013 <http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/241195> defines the
phrase as "Of or pertaining to Latin America or its peoples." with the note
that "Until the early 20th cent. Spanish American was the preferred term."

Why the change?

Spanish and Portuguese are classed as "romance languages", being considered
to have evolved mostly from the Latin of the Roman empire. Both countries
acknowledged papal authority in international politics when they were first
exploring the Americas, and their people were overwhelmingly followers of
the "Roman Catholic" (also sometimes known as "Latin") Church. But the
languages are pretty far removed from classical Latin, and the people are
by no stretch of the imagination identifiable with the Latin-speaking
tribes who founded the Roman empire - particularly not those "Latin
Americans" with slight or absent Iberian ancestry. So why "Latin"?

--
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
-- Whiskers
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

[Christian Weisgerber]

Percival P. Cassidy <Nob...@NotMyISP.net> wrote:

> I have never heard the term "steward" applied to a female,

I imagine a football steward (UK) who is a woman is still called a
steward.

[Espanuelo]

Question resolved: is called Hispanic.

Latino or Latina is called Hispanic.

[Dänk 42Ø]

"Hispanic" could be used, but I don't like the term because it implies
the person is from Spain. And though the preferred term for the region
south of the U.S. border is "Latin-America," calling its residents
"Latins" doesn't sound right -- implying that they are Romans.

What bothers me is that the use of these terms lumps people from diverse
ethnicities and nationalities into a single group, with their only common
trait being that they speak Spanish. Americans, Canadians, British, and
many Indians speak English, but they are not all lumped together as
"Anglo."

Nobody would refer to an African-American as an "Anglo," even though he
speaks English. A person of African descent from Cuba could be called
"Hispanic," though. This doesn't make sense.

[David Hatunen]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 09:36:10 -0400, "Percival P. Cassidy"
<Nob...@NotMyISP.net> wrote:

>For a long time "man" was considered "generic" (or perhaps "common"
>gender rather than "neuter"), but nowadays many women object to that
>usage, with the result that even hymns and Bible translations have often
>been revised to accommodate their concerns. (I've sometimes wondered
>what German "feminists" do, when even "Mensch" [= human being of either
>gender] is still grammatically masculine: "der Mensch.")

And, as Mark Twain pointed out, "maedchen" is neuter. Ho hum.

[David Hatunen]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 00:17:18 -0500, D�nk 42� <da...@ak47.com> wrote:

>The wonderful thing about American-English is its ability to absorb new
>words from other languages, which is why it has become THE most popular
>international language. For example, words like "karma" and "taco" are
>co-opted directly from Hindi and Spanish, something which is not
>permissible in languages like French.
>
>Thus, it is illogical to absorb a foreign word like "Latino" while
>keeping a gender distinction that does not exist in other American-
>English words. The modern grammar rule is to use the historical
>masculine form for male and female alike. Since she spoke of
>"herself" (a rare exception to the neuter rule I refer to) in American-
>English, Sonia Sotomayor should have used the term "Wise LatinO", not
>"LatinA".
>
>Furthermore, if adhering to foreign language grammar conventions is so
>important to lily-white liberals, so much so that they are willing to
>throw their deliberate neuterization of American-English grammar under
>the proverbial bus, then they should go all the way and use foreign
>capitalization and punctuation conventions. In Spanish, "latino" and
>"latina" (and other ethnic-nationality nouns and adjectives) are always
>lower case, unless they begin a sentence. If las reglas del idioma

>espa�ol are followed correctly, Sra. Sotomayor is a wise "latina." In

>American-English, she is always a "Latino" (wise or not).

Words haven't been completely adopted into English until they've lost
any foreign grammar aspects. "Latino" is still a foeign word; the
correct English word should be simply "Latin". I suspect that calling
a Spanish-speaking female a "Latino: would be a bit offensive.

Or, for Sotomayer, simply "Puerto Rican".

Nevertheless, "Latino" and "Latina" can be handy usages, especially in
a town like Tucson where Spanglish is common.

[David Hatunen]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 11:44:09 +0000 (UTC), na...@mips.inka.de
(Christian Weisgerber) wrote:

>D�nk 42� <da...@ak47.com> wrote:
>
>> English is one of the few languages that has no gender inflection.
>
>Whoa. Have a look here:
>
>http://wals.info/feature/30A
>
>(Never mind that the creators of this database actually assign
>English to the three-gender bin.)

Masculine, feminine and neuter, of course. While English long ago
dropped most gender inflections, it retains a few.

[Cheryl]

On 18/05/2013 4:47 PM, Dänk 42Ø wrote:

> "Hispanic" could be used, but I don't like the term because it implies
> the person is from Spain. And though the preferred term for the region
> south of the U.S. border is "Latin-America," calling its residents
> "Latins" doesn't sound right -- implying that they are Romans.
>
> What bothers me is that the use of these terms lumps people from diverse
> ethnicities and nationalities into a single group, with their only common
> trait being that they speak Spanish. Americans, Canadians, British, and
> many Indians speak English, but they are not all lumped together as
> "Anglo."
>
> Nobody would refer to an African-American as an "Anglo," even though he
> speaks English. A person of African descent from Cuba could be called
> "Hispanic," though. This doesn't make sense.
>

People passionate about classifying other people are going to find out
sooner or later that a great number of them, like the Cuban with African
ancestors or the native English speaker with, oh, almost any kind of
ancestors, fit into more than one category. Simple clear classifications
that 'make sense' probably don't exist.

If the person in question wants to call herself a Latina, it doesn't
bother me. The usage is clear enough even if it isn't strictly logical.


--
Cheryl

[David Hatunen]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 14:17:36 -0500, D�nk 42� <da...@420.org> wrote:

>On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:38:48 +0200, Espanuelo wrote:
>

>> D�nk 42� wrote:

>>> Furthermore, if adhering to foreign language grammar conventions is so
>>> important to lily-white liberals, so much so that they are willing to
>>> throw their deliberate neuterization of American-English grammar under
>>> the proverbial bus, then they should go all the way and use foreign
>>> capitalization and punctuation conventions. In Spanish, "latino" and
>>> "latina" (and other ethnic-nationality nouns and adjectives) are always
>>> lower case, unless they begin a sentence. If las reglas del idioma

>>> espa�ol are followed correctly, Sra. Sotomayor is a wise "latina." In

>>> American-English, she is always a "Latino" (wise or not).
>>
>> Question resolved: is called Hispanic.
>>
>> Latino or Latina is called Hispanic.
>
>"Hispanic" could be used, but I don't like the term because it implies
>the person is from Spain.

And ti wouldn't include Brazilians.

>And though the preferred term for the region
>south of the U.S. border is "Latin-America," calling its residents
>"Latins" doesn't sound right -- implying that they are Romans.
>
>What bothers me is that the use of these terms lumps people from diverse
>ethnicities and nationalities into a single group, with their only common
>trait being that they speak Spanish. Americans, Canadians, British, and
>many Indians speak English, but they are not all lumped together as
>"Anglo."

Yes, they are. At least where the distinction is needed, as in, say,
Quebec.

>Nobody would refer to an African-American as an "Anglo," even though he
>speaks English.

They might in Canada to distinguish an A-A from the Quebecois. I don't
suppose he would be an "African-American", though, would he?

If a Black man born and raised in Canadian moves to the US would he
become an "African-American"?

>A person of African descent from Cuba could be called
>"Hispanic," though. This doesn't make sense.

Or from Puerto Rico.

One of the complaints in Latin/Hispanic communties is that the second
generation of immigrants tends to speak almost accentless English and
is losing the ability to speak Spanish. Are these descendants "Latino"
or "Hispanic"?

My ancestors went through the immigrant assimilation process: all my
grandparents came from Finland. My grandparents spoke rather bad
English, but my mother and father, and my aunts and uncles, were
bilingually fluent. I can barely speak any Finnish save for a few
tourist words. Can I call myself a "Finnish-American"?

Perhaps the real answer is to stop treating all Latin-Americans as a
single bloc, something they tend to resent anyway, and be more
specific. Call them "Mexican" or "Mexican-American", "Nicaraguan",
etc.

So what do you suggest?

(Some twenty -odd years ago a member of the San Francisco Fire
Department attempted to take advantage of a provision favoring Latinos
for promotion. He was refused because he was of Portuguese descent.)

[Ian Jackson]

In message <afofp8t3k0cs4mc3t...@4ax.com>, David Hatunen
<hat...@cox.net> writes

In Dutch, all diminutives are neuter (even when they refer to people). I
presume the same applies in German.
--
Ian

[Robert Bannister]

Same in Macedonian, but not Russian.

--
Robert Bannister

[Dänk 42Ø]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 14:52:17 -0700, David Hatunen wrote:

> On Sat, 18 May 2013 14:17:36 -0500, Dänk 42Ø <da...@420.org> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 18 May 2013 22:38:48 +0200, Espanuelo wrote:
>>

>>> Dänk 42Ø wrote:
>
>>>> Furthermore, if adhering to foreign language grammar conventions is
>>>> so important to lily-white liberals, so much so that they are willing
>>>> to throw their deliberate neuterization of American-English grammar
>>>> under the proverbial bus, then they should go all the way and use
>>>> foreign capitalization and punctuation conventions. In Spanish,
>>>> "latino" and "latina" (and other ethnic-nationality nouns and
>>>> adjectives) are always lower case, unless they begin a sentence. If

>>>> las reglas del idioma español are followed correctly, Sra. Sotomayor

>>>> is a wise "latina." In American-English, she is always a "Latino"
>>>> (wise or not).
>>>
>>> Question resolved: is called Hispanic.
>>>
>>> Latino or Latina is called Hispanic.
>>
>>"Hispanic" could be used, but I don't like the term because it implies
>>the person is from Spain.
>
> And ti wouldn't include Brazilians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanic

"Today, organizations in the United States use the term as a broad catch
all to refer to persons with a historical and cultural relationship
either with Spain and Portugal or only with Spain, regardless of race."

>>What bothers me is that the use of these terms lumps people from diverse
>>ethnicities and nationalities into a single group, with their only
>>common trait being that they speak Spanish. Americans, Canadians,
>>British, and many Indians speak English, but they are not all lumped
>>together as "Anglo."
>
> Yes, they are. At least where the distinction is needed, as in, say,
> Quebec.

I used to work with a guy from Brazil. He was of French-Italian descent,
with blonde hair and blue eyes, but was technically "Hispanic" by the
U.S. federal definition. Had his ancestors emigrated to Quebec and he
had grown up speaking French instead of Portuguese, he would just be
"white."

Even if I don't agree with it, I can understand creating "privileged"
categories for descendants of groups victimized by U.S. policies in the
past. However, I don't recall Brazilians or other South Americans ever
being enslaved in the USA. I also do not see much difference between
French-Italians in Brazil who speak Portuguese and French-Italians in
Quebec who speak French.

As for Spanish-speaking "Latinos," I am offended by the suggestion that
they are persecuted in the present or past, given how willing they are to
risk their lives escaping their homelands for a better life in the USA.
African slaves had no choice to come here, but the Mexicans risking their
lives crossing deadly deserts and rivers to come here DO have a choice.

> One of the complaints in Latin/Hispanic communties is that the second
> generation of immigrants tends to speak almost accentless English and is
> losing the ability to speak Spanish. Are these descendants "Latino" or
> "Hispanic"?
>
> My ancestors went through the immigrant assimilation process: all my
> grandparents came from Finland. My grandparents spoke rather bad
> English, but my mother and father, and my aunts and uncles, were
> bilingually fluent. I can barely speak any Finnish save for a few
> tourist words. Can I call myself a "Finnish-American"?

I'm an American mutt, with ancestors from several European countries,
including England, Wales, Ireland, Denmark, and Germany. I consider
myself to be an American above all else. If my ethnicity controlled my
identity, I would be at war with myself!

> (Some twenty -odd years ago a member of the San Francisco Fire
> Department attempted to take advantage of a provision favoring Latinos
> for promotion. He was refused because he was of Portuguese descent.)

Interesting. I'd like to know how the case turned out. I remember a
somewhat similar case of a white man from South Africa (?) who emigrated
to the USA, became a U.S. citizen and later enrolled in college. The
application form demanded he report his "race," so he checked "African-
American." He was technically from Africa, he was a naturalized American
citizen, but he was told he was not allowed to describe himself as an
"African-American."

When I was in high school I was friends with a lily-white guy. After
graduating he applied to a university, listing his "race" as "Native
American." Unbeknown to me, he was 1/8th Cherokee, and though I had
always seen him as the epitome of middle-class whiteness, he was actually
an oppressed minority and deserving of affirmative action. I can't blame
him for taking advantage of such a ridiculous legal loophole.

[Espanuelo]

the termination -ic gives to the adjective or noun a meaning of
assimilation or semblance.

"Hispanic", because he o she speaks Castilian language (as known as
Spanish).

When the Hispanic do not speak Castilian he will leave to be Hispanic.

>
> What bothers me is that the use of these terms lumps people from diverse
> ethnicities and nationalities into a single group, with their only common
> trait being that they speak Spanish. Americans, Canadians, British, and
> many Indians speak English, but they are not all lumped together as
> "Anglo."
>

Germanic.

Then this Indian is Germanic if he do not know his Native language.

> Nobody would refer to an African-American as an "Anglo," even though he
> speaks English. A person of African descent from Cuba could be called
> "Hispanic," though. This doesn't make sense.

A Negro from Cuba is Hispanic if he speaks Castilian and he do not
speak a Bantu language.

Hispanic, Germanic, Lusitanic or Portugalic or Portic, Francic,......

[Christian Weisgerber]

David Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:

> >http://wals.info/feature/30A
> >
> >(Never mind that the creators of this database actually assign
> >English to the three-gender bin.)
>
> Masculine, feminine and neuter, of course. While English long ago
> dropped most gender inflections, it retains a few.

The _only_ remnant of the traditional Indo-European gender system
that remains in English are the three third-person singular pronouns,
and these are assigned based on _semantics_. I can easily tell you
the gender of a noun such as "doctor" in French or German. What's
the gender of "doctor" in English? Not the sex of a person who is
a doctor, but the word _doctor_? The question doesn't even make
sense in English.

You can force a gender interpretation onto English, but it leads
to strange results. _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_
concludes that English does have masculine ("brother"), feminine
("sister"), and neuter words, but also others that have two ("doctor")
or three genders ("baby").

Meanwhile, Quirk et al. in _A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language_ noticed that not only "he/she/it", but also "who/which"
show agreement with their referent. Going through the possible
combinations, they arrive at rather more than three genders (but
again, these are semantically assigned):

PRONOUN
GENDER CLASS EXAMPLE COREFERENCE

.- (a) male brother who - he
|- (b) female sister who - she
.- personal ----+- (c) dual doctor who - he/she
| .- |- (d) common baby who - he/she/it
animate --| | | which - it
| |- `- (e) collective family which - it
| | who - they
`- non- --+---- (f) higher which - he/it
personal | male bull (who) - he
| animal
|---- (g) higher which - she/it
| female cow (who) - she
| animal
`---- (h) lower ant which - it
animal (he/she)
inanimate ------------------ (i) inanimate box which - it


Just stop it with the penis envy and accept that English doesn't
have grammatical gender. It doesn't diminish the language in any
way.

[Robert Bannister]

I would note that all of the above can have "that" as a relative, even
though "that" was neuter historically.

--
Robert Bannister

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

"Percival P. Cassidy" <Nob...@NotMyISP.net> writes:

> I have never heard the term "steward" applied to a female, What were
> "stewards" and "stewardesses" on aircraft are now "flight
> attendants."

That's because the word got that specific meaning at a point when
(essentially) only women had the job. I don't recall ever hearing a
man called a "steward" in that sense.

Poking around Google, I see a number of references to women as wine
stewards and as stewards of this and that.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |A handgun is like a Lawyer. You
SF Bay Area (1982-) |don't want it lying around where
Chicago (1964-1982) |the children might be exposed to
|it, but when you need one, you need
evan.kir...@gmail.com |it RIGHT NOW, and nothing else will
|do.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Bill McNutt

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

na...@mips.inka.de (Christian Weisgerber) writes:

> David Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> >http://wals.info/feature/30A
>> >
>> >(Never mind that the creators of this database actually assign
>> >English to the three-gender bin.)
>>
>> Masculine, feminine and neuter, of course. While English long ago
>> dropped most gender inflections, it retains a few.
>
> The _only_ remnant of the traditional Indo-European gender system
> that remains in English are the three third-person singular pronouns,
> and these are assigned based on _semantics_. I can easily tell you
> the gender of a noun such as "doctor" in French or German. What's
> the gender of "doctor" in English? Not the sex of a person who is
> a doctor, but the word _doctor_? The question doesn't even make
> sense in English.
>
> You can force a gender interpretation onto English, but it leads
> to strange results. _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_
> concludes that English does have masculine ("brother"), feminine
> ("sister"), and neuter words, but also others that have two ("doctor")
> or three genders ("baby").

I don't speak French or German, so I can't speak to them, but do they
really not have words like that? Spanish distinguishes between "el
artista" and "la artista" depending on the sex of the referent, just
like Enlish does with "artist". Similarly "el/la dentista" (dentist)
and "el/la atleta" (athlete), "el/la joven" (youth), "el/la
capitalista" (capitalist). Poking around, I also see "jimagua"
(twin), "compinche" (pal), "c�mplice" (accomplice), "esparciata"
(Spartan), "testigo" (witness), "oficinista" (clerk), "modelo"
(fashion model). It appears that "la poetisa" (poetess) is frequently
"la poeta" these days, matching "el poeta".

Clearly, English has gone a *lot* farther in that direction, but it's
not unheard of in languages that have more overt gender agreement.

Then you have to figure out what to do with English speakers who
assign female gender to ships, flags, buildings, cats (for some, even
when known to be male), etc.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |Feeling good about government is like
SF Bay Area (1982-) |looking on the bright side of any
Chicago (1964-1982) |catastrophe. When you quit looking
|on the bright side, the catastrophe
evan.kir...@gmail.com |is still there.
| P.J. O'Rourke
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[Evan Kirshenbaum]

David Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> writes:

> Words haven't been completely adopted into English until they've lost
> any foreign grammar aspects.

So "axis" won't be completely adopted into English until its plural is
"axises" rather than "axes"?

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Still with HP Labs |People think it must be fun to be a
SF Bay Area (1982-) |super genius, but they don't
Chicago (1964-1982) |realize how hard it is to put up
|with all the idiots in the world.
evan.kir...@gmail.com | Calvin

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/

[David Hatunen]

Certainly for all diminutives formed by the suffices "-lein" and
"-chen".

[John Briggs]

That play is based on several false premises. Shakespeare's female roles
were played by boys.
--
John Briggs

[CDB]

On 20/05/2013 5:42 PM, John Briggs wrote:

Yes, I've heard that. I don't see how you have come to think that the
play is based on some other arrangement.

[CDB]

On 20/05/2013 5:42 PM, John Briggs wrote:
> CDB wrote:

Sorry, didn't mean to click "send".

To continue: are you quarreling with the age of the male character, Ned,
who played female roles, on the grounds that women were played by young
males, not old ones?

There seems to be still a little doubt that all such roles were played
by boys, a little creative space, and I think the point of the Findley
play was not to give an accurate account of the Elizabethan theatre but
to say something about power and about sexual relationships; the story
would have had to be quite different if the female-actors had been
children.

Besides that, I have seen a television version of the play, and I
remember thinking that there was a lot of Findlay in Ned; and he was
about 70 years old, according to Wp, when the play was presented.

[R H Draney]

Evan Kirshenbaum filted:

>
>Then you have to figure out what to do with English speakers who
>assign female gender to ships, flags, buildings, cats (for some, even
>when known to be male), etc.

I don't do it with cats (I either need to be told that a cat is female or
observe a tricolor pelt), but I do tend to assume all spiders are "she"....r


--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.

[Robert Bannister]

On 21/05/13 12:40 AM, Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> "Percival P. Cassidy" <Nob...@NotMyISP.net> writes:
>
>> I have never heard the term "steward" applied to a female, What were
>> "stewards" and "stewardesses" on aircraft are now "flight
>> attendants."
>
> That's because the word got that specific meaning at a point when
> (essentially) only women had the job. I don't recall ever hearing a
> man called a "steward" in that sense.

I know a bloke who is a right bar steward.
--
Robert Bannister

[John Briggs]

Because the protagonist is an adult male.
--
John Briggs

[Alberto Izquierdo]

On 18 mayo, 22:29, David Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:

> I suspect that calling
> a Spanish-speaking female a "Latino: would be a bit offensive.

Se consideraria sexista (sic) usar una palabra de genero masculino
para referirse a una mujer.

[Christian Weisgerber]

Evan Kirshenbaum <evan.kir...@gmail.com> wrote:

> > You can force a gender interpretation onto English, but it leads
> > to strange results. _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_
> > concludes that English does have masculine ("brother"), feminine
> > ("sister"), and neuter words, but also others that have two ("doctor")
> > or three genders ("baby").
>
> I don't speak French or German, so I can't speak to them, but do they
> really not have words like that? Spanish distinguishes between "el
> artista" and "la artista" depending on the sex of the referent, just

> like Enlish does with "artist". [...]

I don't think German has any. There are homonyms that have different
gender, and unsurprisingly there are nouns of "variable gender"
where the speaker community can't quite agree. Going through a
list of the latter in the Duden Grammar, I see that...
* They don't refer to people.
* They look like regional differences to me, i.e., I have a strong
preference for one of the alternatives.
* Some are jargon vs. common language. ("Filter", "Virus")
* A few may show signs of a semantic split. ("Teil")
* Hey, there's two that do refer to people, but the choice is between
neuter and masculine and contrary to ("Mannequin") or independent
of the person's sex ("Mï¿œndel").
* One only appears in a single fixed phrase. ("Hehl")
* Unsurprisingly, quite a few are loanwords.
* Some I don't know at all.

Now, French, on the other hand, does have nouns whose gender varies
with the sex of the referent, e.g. "un(e) ï¿œlï¿œve" (student, pupil),
mostly ending on silent -e. Also, many more that are distinguished
in writing by adding an -e to the feminine after a vowel are
homophonous in the spoken language, e.g., "un(e) ami(e)".

(And, similar to the situation in German, there are of course various
nouns where people can't quite agree on the gender. Or ones that
change gender between singular and plural, etc.)

> Then you have to figure out what to do with English speakers who
> assign female gender to ships, flags, buildings, cats (for some, even
> when known to be male), etc.

Personification. Done.