Defining gender in English

As we know English doesn't have a grammatic gender. Meanwhile I saw the name of the Coldplay album which had the word "Death" in it and referring to Death as "He".

I just wonder, why Death is He and how do the native speakers "feel" or "determine" the gender?

<<As we know English doesn't have a grammatic gender. Meanwhile I saw the name of the Coldplay album which had the word "Death" in it and referring to Death as "He".

I just wonder, why Death is He and how do the native speakers "feel" or "determine" the gender? >>

This is not grammatical gender, but a personification of Death ("the Grim Reaper") represented in Germanic languages, because English is a Germanic language, as a male hooded figure ("Grim" coming from one of the names for Odin--"Grimnir", who was often portrayed as Death)--very typical of German culture and folklore.

don't forget it

It's a convention. Death is a guy in a black robe with a scythe (see the Grim Reaper). It's an anthropomorphic convention that in its English personification may trace its roots back to Germanic paganism.

Look up the wikipedia article on Death (personification), it's fairly enlightening.

I'd like to add one more question on the topic.
How to refer to a friend defining his gender?

'I was in the cinema with my girl(boy)-friend.'
It sounds as if I had a date with her(him)

<<'I was in the cinema with my girl(boy)-friend.'
It sounds as if I had a date with her(him) >>

Several ways:

Personally, I would say
"I went to the movies with a buddy of mine" (i.e. male friend)
or
"I went to the movies with the chick I'm porkin' "(haha, just kidding ;). No seriously,
"I went to the movies with a female friend of mine."

You could also say "lady-friend" is she's old enough

I would not say "male friend" or anything to that effect, because it would and could be taken the wrong way, unless that's the way you mean it.

There are a lot of inanimate objects and concepts that get personified and given an honorary or "poetic" gender in English. They are mainly determined by tradition, and may or not make sense.

Ships and boats are traditionally referred to as "she", and so by extension are many other types of vehicles.

Cats of unknown sex are usually thought of as female, while dogs in the same situation are usually thought of as male.

Nature and the Earth are usually characterized as feminine. The sun is usually masculine. The moon goes both ways.

Flowers are usually feminine, especially roses , lilies, and daisies -- perhaps because many flower names are also girls' names.

I'm sure there are many others.

thanks for your explanation, anyway gender is such a subject which can't go with logic.

In Romance languages Death is feminine (LA muerte). In Greek and Roman mythology three ladies called "parcae" determined the fate of people. Atropos ( inevitable in Greek), the oldest of the three was the cutter of the thread of life. Perhaps that's the reason why death in French, Spanish and Italian is feminine. Parcae stem from the deepest Indo European mythological level and are related to the Germanic Norns.
Genders may not be logical, but they are part of the soul of the Indo European linguistic family.

How to refer to a friend defining his gender?

'I was in the cinema with my girl(boy)-friend.'
-------------------------------

By using the appropriate pronoun, like this: "My friend and I went to the new Harry Potter movie and she really liked it, but I didn't."

I would just say 'friend' and not indicate the sex at all. It is irrelevant, and if you actually do mention it then people will notice this and think that the fact that you mentioned it could have implications.

Also, not that in informal situations there are many ways to get the point across, or imply the sex of the people you went with.

A guy could say:
I went to the cinema with my mates.
I went to the cinema with the guys.


These depend on region though probably.

When discussing language issues, you should be careful to discriminate between sex and gender. These terms are not synonymous.

For example, the word "girl" in any language will always describe someone of the female sex even if its gender is neuter (i.e., in German) or if it has no gender at all (i.e., Japanese).

In similar fashion, "table" is feminine in French (i.e., by gender) but not female (no French speaker would could consider a table to somehow be a "woman").

There's no doubt that sex and grammatical gender (as a method of classifying nouns) are associated. But they are not the same thing.

By the way, as long as a baby or a cat share the same neuter gender as a cupboard in English, there remains a limited aspect of grammatical gender in the language.