This is a thread where you can talk about the etymology of certain words as well as what is so great (or horrible) about languages in particular. Nothing is stopping you from conversing about everything from grammar to spelling!
Begin the merriment of posting!
Xopher; that's an incredibly broad and generalizing statement that....can really be taken the wrong way.
Also I've never heard the word oven ever referred to as having a gender. There's the gendered term "bun in the oven" but like, I've never heard ovens referred to as being female. It's just an object. Objects aren't referred to with genders unless you're getting metaphorical in the English language. That's one of the problems I had with learning Spanish, actually, in that a lot of objects are referred to with a gender with "la" or "el". Had a lot more trouble with the tenses though.
Spanish has nothing on German with that,where yes,the word for Oven is male (Der Ofen).
Also pretty much every pattern of weather is male too (Der Schnee),except for clouds (Die Wolken). Yet weather (Das Wetter) itself is neutral.
But there is some of that in English,no one calls boats or cars "it",always "she".
edited 7th Feb '14 11:32:29 AM by terlwyth
Yeah, maybe cars and boat lovers do, but I have literally never heard anyone I know refer to cars or boats as "she". Not even my dad, and he had a dinky little fishing boat his whole life. It was just a boat. In fact, referring to vehicles as "she" seems to also be an indicator of how strongly the owner of said vehicle feels about it. So it's hardly coded into the English language that cars and boats are female.
Seriously, Texas resident here, as native an English speaker as you can get. Never heard anyone I know use that sort of phrasing and have only read characters in books using that sort of gendered phrasing.
edited 7th Feb '14 11:41:39 AM by AceofSpades
A handful of English words with their old genders:
Masculine: The woman. The oven. The shoe.
Feminine: Theo cow. Theo toe. Theo door.
Neuter: That child. That light. That limb.
There was also a / an / ane for awhile but by the time it showed up gender was on the decline. Ane was used for feminine words only.
Not dead, just feeling like it.Something I remembered from a while back is that someone from another forum I go on said that he/she/something-something-Ye Old English doesn't believe that capitalization isn't important to him/her anymore after learning some Japanese. What do you think of this?

@Xopher: it's not sexism, they just know the oven should stay in the kitchen.
edited 6th Feb '14 11:50:59 AM by lordGacek