feminine gender?

j   Mon May 01, 2006 3:31 pm GMT
From the book I'm reading now (by young British writer):

The sun had the Belsey house in her hands. She warmed the wood...she offered herself to the brazen purple flowers that grew along the front wall, etc.

I know about cars, ships, countries...Is the sun too?
Ed   Mon May 01, 2006 9:41 pm GMT
Not usually, in everyday use we would say "it warmed the wood". However some things can be masculine or feminine in poetic writing or when refering to an inanimate object affectionately, though there are no hard and fast rules though some things like ships are conventionally feminine. After all, the sun's gender is no more real than the 'hands' the writer ascribes to the sun. He/she could equally have said "He warmed the wood..."
j   Mon May 01, 2006 10:28 pm GMT
2Ed:
thank you for your response.
I'd like to stress my point here. I understand very well the concept of a gender, because my mother tongue has three forms of grammatical gender (male, female, neutral) and it's a mandatory characteristic of EVERY noun. This is why I always pay immediate attention to the English word when it seems to be able to accept grammatical gender - as you say, not in everyday use, but rather in poetic writing, and it's always been a feminine one. Anyway I've never seen the "sun" in this position, but only a "ship", a "car", and a "country".
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon May 01, 2006 10:46 pm GMT
Heavenly bodies can be perceived as being feminine, depending on your orientation, but I would imagine that the two most prominent heavenly bodies of which we are most aware...the Sun and the Moon....would most likely be classified as male and female respectively. The Sun....his powerful rays warm us by day......the Moon...her silvery beams add lustrous beauty to the night.
Kirk   Mon May 01, 2006 10:50 pm GMT
<<Heavenly bodies can be perceived as being feminine, depending on your orientation, but I would imagine that the two most prominent heavenly bodies of which we are most aware...the Sun and the Moon....would most likely be classified as male and female respectively. The Sun....his powerful rays warm us by day......the Moon...her silvery beams add lustrous beauty to the night.>>

Which is interesting because it's not always that way. In German, for instance, "sun" is feminine while "moon" is masculine. It's the opposite in, say, Spanish.
Kirk   Mon May 01, 2006 10:53 pm GMT
In fact, in Old English (when English had grammatical gender) I believe "sun" was feminine and "moon" masculine as it is in German.
Aquatar   Mon May 01, 2006 11:01 pm GMT
Often nature is perceived as being feminine in English i.e. Mother Nature. Maybe the writer was thinking of the sun as a part of nature and therefore assigned it to the feminine gender.

Also, from what I have heard, there is a something of an old-fashioned, sexist basis for cars and ships being assigned to the feminine gender in English i.e. they are a vessel that men own and use. Of course this seems very out of date now, but it's possible it persists from this idea.

I wouldn't have thought it was a leftover of English having actual genders for everyday nouns, in the sense that other European languages do, although I could be wrong.

In everyday speech we would usually refer to cars, ships, the sun and moon as 'it', although there are circumstances when you might use 'she/her' and more infrequntly 'he/him',more often, as stated, in poetic/ written English.
Kirk   Mon May 01, 2006 11:03 pm GMT
Here are some examples:

OE: Seo sunne scineð/scineþ. ('seo' was the feminine article for the nominative)

German: Die Sonne scheint ('die' is Modern German's feminine article for the nominative)

Modern English: The sun shines.

Spanish: El sol brilla ('el' is masculine)
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OE: Se mona scineð/scineþ. ('se' is masculine)

German: Der Mond scheint.

Modern English: The moon shines.

Spanish: La luna brilla ('la' is feminine)
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon May 01, 2006 11:05 pm GMT
Yes that's right, I forgot about that...but even so, I think Spanish has got it right, though. The Spanish (as in Spain...the only one I know) sun is definitely masculine, that's for sure! It's truly fierce...I've been on the Costa del Sol in August.....
Kirk   Mon May 01, 2006 11:08 pm GMT
<<I wouldn't have thought it was a leftover of English having actual genders for everyday nouns, in the sense that other European languages do, although I could be wrong.

In everyday speech we would usually refer to cars, ships, the sun and moon as 'it', although there are circumstances when you might use 'she/her' and more infrequntly 'he/him',more often, as stated, in poetic/ written English.>>

Right. Even considering that of course there are crucial differences between languages with true grammatical gender and English. English may have it as peripheral usage for a few words (and even then not for all speakers---I am a native speaker of English and would and do find it odd to refer to objects with no biological gender as 'he' or 'she'...it's always 'it' for me) but certainly not for the vast majority of words. In languages with grammatical gender all nouns have some form of grammatical gender, not just a few words like ships and cars. Also, the underlying grammatical gender of any given noun is seen in other grammatical inflections surrounding it, such as adjectives or articles, which of course English lacks.
Aquatar   Mon May 01, 2006 11:17 pm GMT
And the other thing is that while a car or a ship can be referred to as feminine in English, neither has to be. It's just as correct to refer to either one as an 'it', and as discussed, more usual. In German it can only ever be 'das Auto'or 'das Schiff' (car and ship, both neuter). That's another reason I wouldn't say they were truly feminine nouns.
Aquatar   Mon May 01, 2006 11:27 pm GMT
In other words I agree with what Kirk was saying.
Jim C, Jorvikskyr   Mon May 01, 2006 11:40 pm GMT
The man in the moon, I spent my childhood trying to work out which expression the moon had on any given day. And my mam used to sing "the sun has got his cap on"
Aquatar   Mon May 01, 2006 11:48 pm GMT
The man in the moon, I spent my childhood trying to work out which expression the moon had on any given day. And my mam used to sing "the sun has got his cap on"

So it seems it is also used as a way to stress the idea of a personification of certain objects in English in certain contexts.
j   Tue May 02, 2006 1:26 am GMT
Aquatar says: ...idea of a personification of certain objects in English in certain contexts.

Interesting point. Really, how does English use a personification - let's say in fairy tales, fables, children's stories, where trees talk, flowers sing, etc? Are there some permanent characteristics which are being applied to an inanimate object make it look as animate one and with provided gender identification? Or it just doesn't work this way?