Chewing the mental cud

[robinbloke]

Morning comparisons of existance, especially on a Monday, really aren't expected to garner any interest.
Then again, given my general viewing public (that’s you lot) just making a single post that says 'Spleen' is just as likely to generate a vast debate, which is why you're all the great people you are.
Right, that’s enough pandering to your egos for now, back to where I was, after a remarkable ramble recovery in the 3^rd quarter, there’s all to play for folks.
These notes follow for my own benefit as much as anyone else, after all it's my journal and as ever I reserve the right to put just about anything here really, so there.

The nature of the existance and perceptions of the two sexes started quite humbly, after I referred to a dolphin in Atlantis as 'him' and tagged the obligatory PC 'or her' onto the end of it, after all especially with beasties like dolphins it's somewhat hard to check. This is perhaps a problem with English as regards to levels of familiarity in conversation and reminds me of a question a French boy asked me when I was a wee lad,
"When you talk about animals do you call them him or her sometimes?" and I'd responded yes, when they're pets and such.

It's that level of familiarity I was trying to catch when I referred to the dolphin as 'him', almost like moving from 'vous' to 'tu' in French but for a creature of non known gender. It's not actually possible to express that kind of sentiment in English, "it's a dog" and "he's a dog" work fine, there is a level of familiarity changed there, almost friendliness but if you don't have an idea what gender the beastie in question is you're up a certain creek without a certain implement.
Now in French too, this doesn't exactly work (as far as I can work out - do correct me if I'm wrong) everything is already predefined in gender terms, from tables to chairs to dogs and cats - the latter two is where this is all is leading eventually, well probably we'll see how it goes.
Right, French. Now in French you can refer to beasties as 'him' or 'her' already, but there is no non gender reference, or more specifically there is no 'take a step back and disassociate from them' level of reference for a third party. I could of course be wrong, the intricacies of vous,nous and tu etc have long since been lost to my brain.

But what about cats and dogs?
<pause>
A meeting has kind of killed my momentum for this thread, brain has all slowed down, but suffice it to say life is in a bit of a different light now.

Comments

Since you ask...

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

Un chat is a (generic) cat. it is also a male cat. Une chatte is a female cat... :P

Un chien is a (generic) dog. Likewise, it's also a male dog. Une cheinne is a bitch, and can be used to mean both a female dog and an unpleasant female in general.

Tables are girls, and so are chairs. :P

Essentially 'a thing' or 'it [creature]' is gendered, but in a non-specific way. So. Erm. It kind of doesn't count that it's male or female, it's just accepted. :)

Did that make any sense? *hopeful*

Re: Since you ask...

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

...And that's chienne, not cheinne. *sighs*

Re: Since you ask...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Very helpful thanks; I don't know how I'd ever remember genderisations for languages.

So French has no 'it' (unlike German, as I believe) except with gender overtones?

Re: Since you ask...

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

In French and Spanish, a group of something uses the male plural if the items in the group are male or of mixed sex, and only uses the female if all the items are plural.

We had an exchange visit from a Spanish school, with all bar one of the group being female. The one boy made them los españoles instead of las españolas.

In English, we have the neuter they and them, so don't have this phenomenon with groups. However we still have the sexed his, him, her, and hers, for singulars, with his and him used for persons of unknown sex, and to refer to both sexes, such as in every employer shall provide his employees with …. This is ambiguous, and can lead the reader/listener to assume that a male is being written/spoken about, when in fact a person of either or unknown sex was being written/spoken about. Some people like to use they and them as neuter singular pronouns, however ths can also lead to confusion, this time as to whether the writer/speaker means one person or many people. What I feel is needed is an effective neuter pronoun that can be applied to people. It and its refer to objects and would not be suitable.

Re: Since you ask...

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

I know their have been minor attempts now and then to introduce non gender specific terms for an unknown person, such as "hir" (if memory serves, usually it doesn't) but you've explained what I meant rather better :)

Re: Since you ask...

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

if you don't have an idea what gender the beastie in question is

Err, yeah, I think that's what para. 3 tries to cover, he/him/his/his vs. they/them/their/theirs.

Re: Since you ask...

[ksirafai.livejournal.com]

every employer shall provide his employees with...

This is unfortunately a bad example, since it brings in the most annoying differential in English/Latin-based languages. (well, to my mind, anyhow).

In Latin and associated languages - Spanish and so forth, belonging to has the possessive relating to the item - the object of the sentence. in English, it relates to the person - the subject.

Thus a literal translation of 'every employer...' would indeed give 'his employees', but 'our employer (female) gives her employees...' would _still_ use the _male_ possessive when referring to the employees, because it's a mixed gender group...

I'd give examples, but I can't. It's been too long since I studied the languages, and French follows our rules. Essentially, it's a language confusion based on whether the possessive pronoun refers to the object or the subject of the sentence in Latin and Spanish.

Urm. [/grammar fascism].

But yes, there's no neuter form in French, other than a nominal 'on', which translates as either 'we' or 'one', dependant on usage. It's a touch pretentious to use when referring to one person, and a casual way of saying 'we', since the 'nous' (we) form generally has a long and complicated ending, whereas the 'on' form follows the rules for 'il/elle', which are far less complex.

:)

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

"Every employer shall provide his employees..."
The simple solution here, is to use 'their'. "Every employer shall provide their employees..."

As for gender definitions, German does have them, as does French, although amusingly enough they don't correspond ('la lune' is the moon, French, female, 'Der Mond' is the moon, German, male for example. Chairs & tables are further examples of female in French & male in German)

So you have:
'Der Mann'- the man, male
'Die Frau'- the woman, female, but
'Das Mädchen'- the girl, neuter

As far as animals are concerned, they are generically assigned a sex, such as 'Der Hund'- the dog, male, or 'Die Katze'- the cat, female. However, as soon as you get specific, this changes of course- "Der Rüde" is the male dog ('der' being the male 'the') while "Die Hündin" is the bitch, 'die' being the female 'the'.

[fellcat.livejournal.com]

There can be comprehension problems with this, especially if they is being used of both a singular entity and a plural entity.

http://www.aetherlumina.com/gnp/faq.html#one

Re: Since you ask...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Purely by experience. French people have the same problem with irregular English verbs, of which there are more than regular ones.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

If you haven't been told the cat, "il" is a perfectly good substitute for the English "it", even if it's called Tina and is small and manicured. If you find out it's a she-cat, then you can use "elle". It's one of those things where you don't really think about the implication of the word, such that it's open for making a pun on. The French indefinite 'il' is certainly not equivalent to the English 'he' in the context of things you don't know the sex of. The cat situation apparently also applies to babies.

[whiskeylover.livejournal.com]

That does not make it any less correct though. In fact, 'their' is plural in a way, as it includes the possibility of both male and female. If one only has the one employer, then one can quite happily make the statement gender specific, depending on the employer ("the employer mus provide his employees...")

However, when there are more than one, then it becomes "All employers shall provide their employees..." or indeed Every employer shall provide their employees..."