GENDER 



2415 



GENDER 



respectively to the masculine, the feminine or 

 the neuter gender. Neuter and gender are 

 derived from Latin words meaning neither and 

 kind. Thus, gender may be denned as the 

 property of a noun or a pronoun that indicates 

 sex or absence of sex. It applies only to words, 

 whereas sex applies to things. 



The Simple and Logical Rule. As sug- 

 gested, gender in the English language is nat- 

 ural that is, determined by the sex of the 

 object for which the word stands. All nouns 

 or pronouns denoting the male sex are mascu- 

 line: he, man, cock, boy, king; all words de- 

 noting the female sex are feminine: she, 

 woman, hen, girl, queen; all words denoting 

 objects without sex are neuter: it, book, virtue, 

 ( snow, knife. 



In most foreign languages gender has nothing 

 to do with sex ; it is grammatical, not natural 

 that is, it is governed by the form of the word. 

 The German word for girl (Mddchen) is neuter 

 in gender because it happens to have a neuter 

 ending; woman (Weib) is also neuter, so that 

 the German, as Mark Twain laughingly re- 

 marks in A Tramp Abroad, says, "The fishwife 

 has dropped its basket of fishes." In German 

 fork is feminine and spoon masculine, while in 

 French both are feminine. "English stands 

 entirely alone," says the grammarian Ramsey, 

 "in making gender a rational and intelligible 

 distinction." As a matter of fact, the gender 

 of an English noun acquires real importance 

 only when the third personal pronoun follows, 

 for this pronoun must agree in gender with the 

 noun to which it refers; thus, The queen was 

 saved by her guard, who lost his own life in 

 defending hers. 



Gender Forms. No English noun has a dis- 

 tinctive neuter form, but there are some 

 relatively few in number that distinguish the 

 masculine and feminine in one of these three 

 ways: 



1. By different words for the masculine and 

 feminine, which for convenience are usually 

 learned in pairs; as, husband, wife; son, daugh- 

 ter; bachelor, maid; monk, nun; wizard, witch; 

 bull, cow; ram, ewe; gander, goose. 



2. By adding the suffix ess, ine, trix or a to the 

 masculine to form the feminine. Of these endings, 

 ess is the most common. This formation may or 

 may not require some other change in the word ; 

 as, actor, actress; duke, duchess; marquis, mar- 

 chioness; prince, princess; hero, heroine; Paul, 

 Pauline; czar, czarina; executor, executrix; sul- 

 tan, sultana; signor, signora. 



3. By joining a distinguishing word to a noun 

 of indeterminate gender (see below) ; as, billy- 

 goat; nanny-goat; he-bear; she-bear; man-serv- 

 ant; maid-servant. This method, once very com- 



mon, is gradually going out of use. In the case 

 of animals, the modern tendency is to prefix the 

 adjective male or female where necessary to dis- 

 tinguish ; in the case of human beings, to use the 

 masculine form for both, letting the context indi- 

 cate the gender. 



Common or Indeterminate Gender. Most 

 nouns denoting living beings may refer to 

 either sex; for example, visitor, servant, cousin, 

 parent, child, friend, hearer, bird, butterfly. 

 Such words are sometimes said to be of the 

 common gender sometimes termed the inde- 

 terminate gender. If such a noun in the singu- 

 lar is used to refer to both sexes, it is proper 

 to follow it by the masculine pronoun, which 

 stands for both genders; as, Every person has 

 a right to HIS own opinion not, to their own 

 opinion, which is ungrammatical, or to his or 

 her own opinion, which is cumbersome. 



Special Cases. The sex is often disregarded 

 and the pronoun it is used in referring to a 

 very young child; as, The baby dropped ITS 

 ball; the child and ITS nurse were both ill. 

 Insects, small animals, and those animals with 

 which man does not come in frequent contact 

 are usually treated as neuter, while masculine 

 or feminine gender is commonly assigned to 

 the larger animals and those that mean most 

 to man. Thus "he" is used for the dog, the 

 cock, the horse, the elephant, the eagle; "she" 

 for the cat and the hen; "it" for the ant, the 

 fly, the squirrel, the rabbit. This is not, how- 

 ever, a hard and fast rule. When some inani- 

 mate object is"spoken of as if it were alive, 

 we have the figure of speech called personifica- 

 tion (which see), things immense or sublime 

 being treated as belonging to the male sex; 

 those virtuous, lovely or fertile as belonging to 

 the female sex. Thus, Shelley writes: 



How wonderful is Death ! 

 Death and his brother Sleep. 



And Shakespeare pictures the dawn as a woman 

 and the great sun as her lover: 



See how the morning opes her golden gates, 

 And takes her farewell of the glorious sun ! 



The Changing Fashion. At one time distinc- 

 tions of gender were considered so important 

 in English grammar that forms like teacheress, 

 championess, neighboress and the like were in 

 everyday use. Not many years ago, in fact, 

 instructress, songstress and similar feminine 

 forms were considered good form. The present 

 tendency is toward simplicity, and such gender 

 terminations are being dropped as far as pos- 

 sible. To-day a woman writer as an author, 

 a poet or an editor, not the old-fashioned 



