1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



213 



HE OR SHE. 



Its Use in Different Languages. 



BY F. GREINER. 



It has been the custom of all the English- 

 speaking people to give the worker-bee the 

 masculine pronoun he. I am not very certain 

 th it there has been any particular reason for 

 this. No language, that I have gotten a slight 

 inkling of, seems to be very consistent in con- 

 ceding any particular gender to the things of 

 this earth. How, for instance, may we ac- 

 c unt for using the masculine pronoun he 

 when speaking of the sun, but the feminine, 

 she, when speaking of the moon, especially 

 when considering that the German has it 

 right the opposite, while the other languages, 

 a ;ain, like Latin, French, aud Greek, have it 

 the same as the English? 



Huw can we account for it, that in the Ger- 

 man we give the drone the pronoun she, but 

 not so in the English ? to the worker-bee the 

 feminine she, yet not so in the English ? 

 Nearly all of us remember when the queen 

 used to be called "king;" among the Ger- 

 mans, Koenig [king], and Weiser (/) [leader], 

 with, of course, the masculine gender. This 

 older usage, though, has substantially gone 

 out of practice in a measure, so to speak, as 

 the people have gained in knowledge. 



The explanation of why there are so many 

 inconsistencies in our languages lies, it seems 

 to me, right here. Languages were made up 

 greatly by ignorant, uneducated people. Lan- 

 guage was first, then education. Can it then 

 be wondered at that so many of these incon- 

 sistencies crept in — inconsistencies that now 

 cause the student so much hard study ? It 

 seems to me that it is only a move in the 

 right direction when we now try to rectify 

 some of the greatest inconsistencies and blun- 

 ders, wherever it may be done without much 

 inconvenience. 



I certainly was greatly pleased when the 

 erlitor of Gleanings first started the reform 

 in our bee-literature by giving the worker the 

 feminine gender, to which it is rightfully en- 

 titled. As a German I had been used to styl- 

 ing the worker as she, as mentioned before, 

 and I could not become reconciled to giving 

 it the masculine pronoun he when learning the 

 English language. 



Mr. Hasty, in the December Bee-keepers' 

 Review, expresses his opinion in this matter. 

 He thinks the effort in behalf of this reform is 

 born by a spirit of conceit, we thinking of 

 ourselves as possessing greater knowledge 

 than the laity ; and it is not impossible that 

 this may be true. 



Further on Mr. Hasty tries to represent the 

 worker from the " absolute-fact standpoint, " 

 and says the worker-bee is anatomically a 

 female, but functionally a neuter, and should 

 properly carry the pronoun it, etc. I grant 

 that the mission of the worker has thus been 

 described, and is looked upon by almost all, 

 even the scientists. But what are the facts in 

 the case? What are the functions of the 

 worker? A worker may lay eggs which may 



produce bees (male). Workers in a body 

 may, by a sort of incubation, hatch eggs. 

 Workers may secrete milk, so to speak, and 

 are able to (one might say) suckle the young. 

 The workers do not only secrete the milk, but 

 milk themselves for the benefit of the young, 

 if I may be allowed to express the process in 

 these words. These are the most prominent 

 faculties the workers possess. 



No doubt Mr. Hasty considers the queen a 

 perfect female. Indeed, the queen has become 

 the proud owner of this distinguished title, 

 " peifect female of the hive;" but is she justi- 

 fied in holding it ? What qualities do we gen- 

 erally look for in a perfect female? Mr. 

 Hasty is growing up a young bovine, a heifer 

 calf, by the name of Dinah. The mother cow 

 did not only give birth to this calf, but she 

 provides for it proper food, and suckles it. 

 So the here well-defined characteristics of this 

 perfect female cow are, 1, to give birth ; 2, to 

 furnish food by secretion. The queen can 

 well perform the first of the two ; but further 

 she can do nothing to keep her race from 

 becoming extinct ; the worker must come to 

 the rescue ; the worker performs the other 

 half of the work of the true female. If I am 

 not very much mistaken, then the worker has 

 a right to the name "female," perhaps fully 

 as much as the queen ; but, as it appears, 

 neither one is a perfect female ; the two to- 

 gether make the ring complete ; and since the 

 one carries the pronoun she undisputedly, the 

 other might as well. When the time comes 

 that the relative missions of queen and worker 

 are not only fully understood, but to each the 

 credit given that to each belongs, then we 

 shall hear no more of the queen being the 

 only perfectly developed female, and the 

 worker being neuter, but each will be address- 

 ed as it properly should — Mrs. Queen and 

 Mrs. Worker. 



Naples, N. Y., Jan. 3. 



HE, SHE, OR IT. 



A Little Advice to the Editor. 



They are having a good deal of discussion in 

 Gleanings about the proper pronoun to use 

 in connection with a worker-bee, and the 

 editor says in a note that he has associated 

 with he smartness and wickedness, and with 

 she softness and goodness. Here is just where 

 the trouble lies. Man, the male, has always 

 egotistically assumed that he was the superior 

 of the rest of creation, women included, and 

 the world has been run with the he, he idea 

 uppermost, until he has left she out of almost 

 every thing. This was especially true in Bible 

 times. Did it ever occur to these male egotists 

 that it is the female germ which is first in the 

 order of creation ? In nature it is the male 

 cell that pans with its individuality when a 

 new being is introduced into this time world. 

 Whatever custom and tradition may say, 

 ' ' man is born of woman, ' ' according to nature, 

 and this places woman first. Man smarter 

 than a woman ? Not much ! We have seen 

 women who could peel the bark off a hickory 



