OT - to the linguists among us

On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 11:00:13 -0500, Val wrote (in article ):

Just where was the spew warning on this?! I've got my morning coffee all over my monitor.

Maureen

LOL! Doc! anyway.....what does it matter ? it takes all kinds to make a world. amy

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No, I just started using gender when I came to this country because I thought it was linguistically correct, but my ex-advisor told me the other day that sex is the correct word, so I am trying to figure out the root of this discrepancy. I am totally sensitive to what Steve said about perception; however, no matter how we might see ourselves, or which our sexual preference is, the fact is that most individuals are genetically male or female - I am after all a biologist!

D> Yes, what Steve said, and very well, too.

Call me naive, call me innocent, whatever but way back in those dim, dark ages when I was a kid - I'd never heard of half the things that are going on now. Perhaps it's because we didn't have shows like Oprah and Dr Phil and (dare I say?) Jerry Springer.

Thank you for pointing out the omission in my writing that yes, most of us genetically are male or female. I never did do very well in biology in high school. Much of what I have learned has occurred later in life through my own reading and talking and listening.

It seems like the more I learn the more confused I get and the more questions that I have.

The whole race thing also gets me going some times too. Aren't we all Americans. Isn't our country a melting pot from the beginning. Our backgrounds may have ethnic origins, but to me, being born here or moving here makes us Americans that happen to have a ________ background.

Just food for thought.

Steven Alaska

D> Yes, what Steve said, and very well, too.

Here's an answer from a grad student studying linguistics:

Nouns in many inflected languages have a "gender", that is, they are considered "masculine," "feminine," "neuter," and sometimes "common." This gender doesn't mean that we're ascribing sexual characteristics to the noun, it's just a classification for it.* The gender of the noun would determine which endings you would put on the adjectives or other words that modified it. A bit of Latin for an example:

puella fessa = tired girl pectus laetus = happy heart

Both "puella" and "fessa" are feminine in gender (the "a" at the end of each denotes that), and the matching gender lets you know that the two are linked in regard to the syntax of the sentence. The same thing happens in the second phrase, but the noun and adjective are masculine. The adjectives in each case could change gender when needed, in order to modify a noun of a different gender. Thus, we could have "puella laeta" or "pectus fessus," too.

Usually, nouns referring to people took the gender of the person. I.e., "puella", a feminine noun, means "girl", whereas "puer", a masculine noun, means "boy."

Here's where I speculate a bit:

I'd be willing to guess that the idea of ascribing "gender" to a person has something to do with this concept. The word "sex" used in terms of gender was used in the 14th century according to the OED, but then, "gender" was used at the same time, too. Both words come from Latin roots (sexus/secus and genus), with "sexus" actually referring to the organs themselves and "genus" referring more to a classification system of types of things. If I had a way to go farther back and see which word seemed to come first, I'd post that, but alas, that's where my ability to reach back into language history ends.

Overall, my two cents says that "sex" would be more "properly" used** in simply referring to stuff directly related to the naughty bits. "Gender" seems more appropriate for those elements that define masculinity or femininity.

Anastasia

---who's off to study up for Anglo Saxon noun paradigms now....

• Incidentally, we keep some of this gender ascription stuff alive nowadays. Ever wonder why, when referring to ships, we say "she"? Now ya know! "Navis" is a feminine noun in Latin!

** Of course, I use "properly" to mean "prescriptively keeping with the traditional order of things; not keeping in mind how much the language changes and grows and that new meanings for old words are popping up every day." Your linguistic mileage may vary. Doesn't mean you're right or wrong. Cool thing, language, innit?

I have an answer for blood type: RED

Bonnie, In Middletown, VA

I don't remember that from before the late 1970s - until then "gender" was purely a linguistic term, in my experience, and the OED I have (from the 1930s) lists no occurrence of the word in the sense you have in mind.

It's not squeamishness, it's making a useful distinction.

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