him\her\he\she

Simon   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 13:28 GMT
It's from the bible but apart odd things like "God's Theign" no.
to Simon   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 13:51 GMT
That was Old English.

This is also the umpteenth reason why you should say thanx to France for now speaking a more refined language, to the very extent that Fr-English has consistently -& righlty so, sought to imitate French.
ANTONIO & UNAWARE GRAMMATICAL GENDER   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 14:12 GMT
Quoting Antonio page 1:

"Simon is right. If it involves personal feelings too. Like when we call ´England´ by ´SHE/HER´. It has emotions involved. When one knows the sex of the animal he/she can use ´he/she´as well".

Nice one Antonio! At last you've figured out that grammatical gender may be useful to convey emotions & connotations. Bravo!

Now you didn't explain why you came to ascribe a kind of lady-like flavour to England rather than a male one. Would I lack personal feelings & emotions had I written "he/him" for "England"?

How can you think:
1/ grammatical gender is useless when it is plainly expressed within languages nurturing & resorting to grammatical sex
2/ and at the same time say yes to grammatical gender ("he/him" for "England") as long as it is personnal and not grammatically official?

Are you well aware of that?
Simon   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 14:15 GMT
Maybe you're right. Makes you think, eh... Or does it?
Simon   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 14:21 GMT
I would answer but I don't think you're sincere.
to Simon   Tuesday, May 20, 2003, 17:05 GMT
Ok forget about my sincerity and read this very interesting book (written in English): "A history of the English language" (by Baugh & Cable >>> available in any decent bookshop, even in the US).
Simon   Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 07:37 GMT
I know about Old English and the history of English. I just found it more interesting to learn a living continental Germanic language i.e. Dutch than to kick around in the linguistic ancestor of my own language.

We may have lost gender because it was already weak. Perhaps only a schwa differentiated gender in words (like Dutch).
to Simon   Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 07:57 GMT
I guess that's exactly what happenned.

You may also find that with some German dialects.
Antonio, to UNAWARE (...) sth.   Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 12:29 GMT
Perhaps you have been sardonic, just that; but, I didn´t get a thing,. Sorry.

I say SHE for England not just because that´s the way we learned it, but also because that´s the way I feel towards England. She is a Fair Lady.
If you don´t understand that, I´m sorry, but I won´t be able to explain it to you.
That´s the way the English language is. It´s no good arguing about genders! English has lost them, and as far as I can tell, WE DO NOT NEED THEM IN ENGLISH at least. Some times it might come handy, is true, but a "yous" would be far better then gender inflections.
Simon   Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 12:37 GMT
People say yous in Northern Ireland! Isn't that what "y'all" is in American English?
Adam   Wednesday, May 21, 2003, 21:41 GMT
Gender is completely pointless. One reason why English is such a good language to speak is because it doesn't have gender. Gender serves no useful purpose. Why should i call a pencil "he" and a window her" when it would be more appropriate to say "it?"
Chantal   Thursday, May 22, 2003, 00:59 GMT
Simon

Thank God, you lost gender in Enlish.
We have enough problems in learning Enligh as a second language that one less makes a slight difference.
Chantal   Thursday, May 22, 2003, 01:01 GMT
Simone,
Could you please enlighten me more about this statement :

We may have lost gender because it was already weak. Perhaps only a schwa differentiated gender in words (like Dutch).

Thanks in advance
Simon   Thursday, May 22, 2003, 07:15 GMT
De Man (common gender)
Het Huis (neuter)

Groot = big

DEFINITE ARTICLE
De grote man
De grote huis

BUT

INDEFINITE ARTICLE
Een grote man
Een groot huis

- If it takes you a while to understand is going on it's because only a subtle change is occurring. That's what I mean by weak.

A schwa is the vowel in French "Le" and English "The".
Simon   Thursday, May 22, 2003, 07:17 GMT
In German you have Der and Die but in Dutch you have De for masculine and feminine.