Or as Cristina, the hostess of el show Cristina, said, catching a bus in Cuba means doing nasty and illegal things to children in Mexican (or is it vice versa)
As far as I know, as that is not a term I'm familiar with, I vote for it being Cuban or sumpin'. Of course even artists, musicians, and college students draw the line at talking about that subject in mixed company, so [shrugging, clicks on next thread].
In Italian (as other Latin language cultures), there are many paired names, where the ending indicates the gender: Maria/Mario Francesca/Francesco Jacinta/Jacinto Fabrizia/Fabrizio Sandra/Sandro Paula/Paulo etc etc. Then there are some that are disctinctly masculine or feminine, but don't have a corresponding pair: Marco, Fiorella, Laura, Sara. etc , but these still follow the a-for-feminine and o-for masculine rules.
The names I find particularly confusing are the masculine names that end in 'a' : eg Luca, Andrea and Nicola Some-one told me that they are different because they come from Greek roots. Can anyone verify this?
An example of confused gender is the Italian word mano = hand. It is declined as if masculine (singular mano, plural mani), but it is actually feminine gender
Many of the Italian words for parts of the body are irregular, in their plural forms and/or gender. A fact I as pleased to be able to point out to my English students in Italy when they complained about the irregular spelling and/or plurals of so many of the English words in the same lexical set!
Some examples: Italian for lip: labbro (sing, masc); while lips: labbra (plur, fem)
Italian for foot: piede (sing,fem); feet: peidi (plu, fem)
While in English we have irregular plurals and some of the most irrational spellings: tooth teeth foot feet eye (spelling!) tongue (spelling!) -etc
La vase (femenine)= mud Le vase (masculine) = vase
Earlier, much earlier, a post mentioned the troubles that anglos have learning French because of the gender issue. To highlight the fact that English is not the only language that makes no sense at times, I cite the following two examples:
Le féminisme (masculine) and la masculinité (feminine).
On a slightly off-topic note: One thing that annoys me is how perfectly good words with inherent gender are being dropped from common usage. I keep hearing various women being refered to as actors yet they strive to win the academy award for best actress.
It's not only actresses who have been demanding the right to have their profession called by the same word used by males, and receiving same from media who are less concerned about the language than about sucking up to the people who help them sell their papers, commercials, etc. These females, who would seem to trying to get people to ignore the fact that they are female, claim that it's demeaning to them to have a different word, or a different form of a word, applied to one sex/gender. This is not a linguistic issue, it's a matter of PC (political correctness), which is at the root of many horrible linguistic practices.
I don't think the Greek origin of words such as Andrea is the issue. There are Italian nouns ending in 'a', such as poeta = poet, which are masculine. I think it more likely that such words, especially when they denote a profession, are remnants of the Latin First Conjugation, where nouns of any gender end in 'a' in the masc. sing. nominative. One of the first sentences learned in Latin I is Marcus est agricola = Marcus is a farmer.
This is not a linguistic issue, it's a matter of PC (political correctness)...
From a linguistic point of view the question is whether there is a meaningful difference between what the word means when applied to a male and when applied to a female.
We easily refer to them as doctors whether they are male or female. Some may prefer one sex over the other for purely individual reasons (and when we are talking about an individual's well being they can easily be valid reasons, on an individual level), but no one ever seems to think that it would be proper to refer to doctor vs. doctress (or doctrix). The erstwhile stewardess became the flight attendant when the occupation started getting a large number of males filling positions. As with the doctor, except for individual preferences the job done by a male is not in anyway different from that done by a female. In cases where it does make a difference (and other than, perhaps sex worker, or even actor/actress, I can't think of any just right off hand) there may be a reason to have a separate word.
Cojer, I know[artists, musicians, students,etc.] but guagua meaning bus is a Cuban thang, according to my Pequeño Larousse. It also means a suckling child[in American hispanic culture] a spice similar to cayenne pepper[cuban usage], a small type of pig[cuban usage again, probably from whence reference to suckling child comes from]. It is also some sort of amphibious rodent of the Americas[muskrat, maybe?]In Ecuador, and apparently only in Ecuador, this word can take either a masculine or feminine article to make it gender specific.[Whew! made it back to the actual topic!]
[bold]GUAGUA[/bold] f. cosa baladí | Amer. Nene, rorro, niño de teta. (En el Ecuador es común de dos, y se dice: el guagua o la guagua) Col. Roedor anfibio de América Cub. Especie de ají Cub. especie de cochinilla Cub. y Can. Autobús [italics] de guagua[/italics], gratis, de balde.
Cristina was interviewed on NPR recently regarding her talk show. She was using cojer la guagua as an example of trying to communicate politely with Hispanophones of many provenances simultaneously.
Now that we have had a good bit of discussion, which I have enjoyed, about the wierdness of grammatical gender, I have to put in a plug for clearly defined gender.
The lack of any indication of gender in 99% of cases in modern English is perhaps a shortcoming. In situations when it may be desirable to indicate gender, you usually have to resort to some sort of periphrasis, often clumsy.
For example: When Charles de Gaulle started a speech, he opened with, "François et Françoises!" (Frenchmen and Frenchwomen!). I suppose that in Canada one would start with "Canadiens et Canadiennes" or "Québecois et Québecoises" and if one were addressing an American audience in French, "Américains et Américaines". But when the President starts one of those speeches televised from the Oval Office, it starts, "My fellow Americans" and has to cover both genders. The French examples above make it clear the orator is addressing his fellow countrymen of each sex/gender specifically and individually. To do this in English is not possible except by importing some noun that does have specific gender and constructing something, like perhaps, My brothers and sisters throughout America, or some such tripe.
The question asks itself, Is there any necessity to specify gender except in rare cases? Are we not beyond putting people in little boxes and avoiding unnecessary labels? Should we be paying much attention to sex/gender?
The answer to that is, I think perhaps a cart/horse or chicken/egg situation. It may be that other nationalities are more aware of gender and the differences between the sexes than we precisely because their language makes clear differentiations between the genders. And we English speakers are in the forefront of the movement towards androgeny and eliminating the differences between the sexes maybe partly because our language makes it easy to ignore gender.
FLIPPANT ANSWER: I HAVE NEVER IGNORED A GENDER IN MY LIFE.
I think that gender differentiation is necessary. I am female and I don't like that fact to be ignored. What I do object to is treatment that is sub-standard because of my gender.
Reminds me of a joke. God pays a visit, routine check-up, on Adam. God says"How's everything with you. Happy here?" Adam says,"Great place. I particularly like what you did with the garden here, but I only have one teeny complaint. I have noticed that all the animals here have mates. Will I be given one?" God slaps his forehead and says"D'oh! I forgot all about that! I'll tell you what. How would you like a beautiful woman, curved just right, one that will obey your every wish and take care of all your needs before you even know you have them." Adam says"Gee, that sounds great. What's the catch?" God says, "Well, it's gonna cost you an arm and a leg." Adam thinks about it for awhile and says"What can I get for a rib?"(bah-dum-dum)
RE:The lack of any indication of gender in 99% of cases in modern English is perhaps a shortcoming. In situations when it may be desirable to indicate gender, you usually have to resort to some sort of periphrasis, often clumsy.
why? if i want a lawyer-- i want the best-- be it a man or a woman. gender as faldage points out, make no difference 99.9% percent of the time..
and while i can understand consuelo concerns, what i find objectionable, is, the real thing is male, and the femine form has an ending similar to many suffixes that are used as diminutives.. a Luncheon is a rather formal lunch, but a luncheonette is so casual, it is below a diner! So it is not just being politicaly correct to say that an air pilot an- Aviator, is a skilled person, and a woman who does the same (pilots an aircraft!) is no less skilled-- so her title should be the same.. and not some sort of diminutive title-- avaitrix
when theater started, all actors where male... actress implies something less than the usual acting company.
i think that if men where subjected to this sort of treatment regularly, they would find it objectionable..
i have worked in male dominated fields.. and spent years, looking at the started faces of people who ask--"you? You're going to .*...? Wow, i never see a female do that* before.. !" and the wierd things i did? set up computers (unbox, plug in, connect to network, and down load some files.. ) nothing really physically hard.. but while computer programing is pretty unisex, 10 year ago, computer technology was still pretty much dominated by men. (its changing and becoming more unisex too)
the stereotyping is real, and language can re-enforce it. Does it matter who carries your coffee to you? and if it doesn't why do you call one person a waiter, and the other a waitress.. why not just a server? and why a diminutive title for the woman --the job/work doesn't change-- why should the title? an other rant might include the fact, that while the job/work doesn't change, the compensation often does.. and waiters are often paid more than waitress. and so on down the line.. the highest paid actors are never actresses.. hmm? which would you want to be? an $100,000 actor or a $85,000 actress?
Faldage says, "The only men's jobs and women's jobs are those which actually *require a penis or a vagina." Definition should perhaps be broadened a bit to include the ancient and honorable profession of wet-nurse.
Well, Helen, I certainly agree with you about how women have been, and still are, always gypped vis-a-vis men by society, but I don't think you can blame that on feminine suffixes in the language. The root of that evil is, as in so many cases, filthy lucre or the desire thereof.
Actually, some women would, I think, have more reason to complain than English-speakers. Take the German damsels who are relegated to being neuter gender, mere things, because the noun which describes them has a diminutive suffix. (See earlier post in this thread.) But then, German has a little leg up for the ladies. A married woman whose husband is one of a number of professionals takes her husband's title. The wife of Dr. Schmidt is known, and addressed, as Frau Doktor Schmidt; Prof. Schwartz' wife is Frau Professor Schwartz; the wife of engineer Krautkopf is Frau Engenieur Krautkopf, etc. However, the wife of Assistant Gas Main Inspector Katzenellenbogen is known as Frau Katzenellenbogen, not Frau Untergashauptleitungsinspektor Kaztenellenbogen, not because she couldn't fit it on her calling card, but because it's not a prestigious title. Thus, a German woman gains prestige from her husband's position if it's exalted enough, and back in the days when such things counted, went down to dinner before other non-titled ladies.
In an ideal world, we could have gender-specific words and descriptive titles, and they would be just that, and no more, with no effects on social status, rates of pay and such other non-linguistic matters.
German has a little leg up for the ladies. A married woman whose husband is one of a number of professionals takes her husband's title
And, of course, if she has earned the title on her own we can always just assume that she got it by virtue [sic] of being married to the "real" holder of the title.
Thus, a German woman gains prestige from her husband's position if it's exalted enough, and back in the days when such things counted, went down to dinner before other non-titled ladies.[EA]
What a *great post, BYB - the perfect mixture of information and entertainment. 'tis posts such as this which keep me coming back to AWAD.
I'm curious about the phrase I bolded; how does one go "down to dinner"? Is this in the context of a restaurant, and being seated before someone of lower stature?
>>>I certainly agree with you about how women have been, and still are, always gypped vis-a-vis men by society,
Women are not always cheated by men (to be really PC, for gypped has its origin in Gypsy). There are inequalities and imbalances in all societies and men are not treated equally either. Women don't get executed for murder, don't get drafted, and can get out of the military by getting pregnant. Boys are put on ritalin at much higher rates and score lower on standardised tests, and have higher drop-out rates with nary a male-oriented program to help them. The Canadian government has a hiring policy to encourage women in non-traditional jobs like engineering and computer science and yet there are no programs to encourage men to become clerks, nurses, or teachers - professions that are heavily female.
In some cases language can have an effect and shape people's judgement but there are limits as to how far this argument can be extended. I have my doubts about actresses getting paid less just because they are called actresses. More likely it has to do with the fact that <most> men will only go to see a "chick" flick when they have to (i.e. when dating or an anniversary), otherwise its explosions and car chases that rule the day. How did, for example, Terminator 2 do against Thelma and Louise?
Not every gender difference has to do with discrimination some are based on real, quantifiable differences. I don't think that it is coincidence that feminine products and laundry soap are advertised during soap operas and beer and pickup trucks are advertised during football.
To finish this rant, an snippet from the Book of Heroic Failures by Stephen Pile. Under the heading of "The Least Successful Equal Pay Advertisement" was the story of how, several decades ago, when Ireland was joining the EU they were told that no longer could they pay men and women different amounts for the same job. The Irish government put out an advertisement for the position of Equal Pay Commissioner with, you guessed it, two different pay scales, one for men and one for women.
End of counter-rant.
Rouspeteur (not to be confused with mon épouse, la Rouspeteuse)
Gymkhana, glad to hear you enjoy the board and hope to hear more from you.
In the 19th century and early part of the 20th, the dinner party was a prominent part of life in the upper middle and higher classes, in the UK and to a lesser extent in the US.
The drill for a dinner party was that the guests assembled, around 7:00 p.m., in the drawing room of the host, where they mingled and made light conversation until time for dinner. Meanwhile, the hostess was greeting and chatting and pairing up the guests to go to dinner, letting each one know whom he would be escorting to the table. When the butler announced that dinner was served, the host took the arm of the highest ranking lady and led the way, followed by the hostess with the highest ranking man, followed by the next highest ranking man with the next highest ranking lady, etc.
In a Town [i.e., London] house, the dining room was always on the ground floor, the drawing room on the [English] first floor [US 2nd floor], so one literally went down to dinner. In a country house, where the drawing room would be on the ground floor across the hall from the dining room, one went in to dinner.
The rules of precedence by which the rankings were determined were rigid and invariable and every hostess had to know them inside out. It would be not only an embarassment of the first order, but a positive insult, to allow a lower ranking guest to precede a higher ranking one. This could get really complicated if you had a very mixed company, say with a Colonel of the Blues, the grandson of a marquess, a Baronet, the Dean of Barchester, a barrister who was a QC, an MP, their respective wives, plus the widow of an earl's son and a Harley Street physician who was a knight.
BTW, my information on this, and other recherché data on life as we see it in Jane Austen, Trollope, Dickens, et al., comes from one of my favorite books, which I highly recommend: What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist -- the Facts of Daily Life in 19th-Century England by Daniel Pool. Simon & Schuster 1993
Earlier Bobyoungbalt commented on the advantage or otherwise of being able to cleary indicate gender in English:
In reply to:
Now that we have had a good bit of discussion, which I have enjoyed, about the wierdness of grammatical gender, I have to put in a plug for clearly defined gender. The lack of any indication of gender in 99% of cases in modern English is perhaps a shortcoming. In situations when it may be desirable to indicate gender, you usually have to resort to some sort of periphrasis, often clumsy.
When I was living in Italy, I remember being frustrated that the ambiguity present in English was not available when I made the statement that I was "going out to dinner with a friend". Sometimes I want the listener be left wondering whether my 'friend' was male of female! In italian you have to say "la mia amica" or "il mio amico" , indicating female or male respectively.
Conversely, I found it very strange to use the masculine plural "amici" to indicte a mixed gender group.
Kirky finds it strange that a plural of mixed gender should always take the masculine form.
Well, that's been one of the whines of the feminist movement. It is a fact that in every Indo-European language I know anything about that when you have a mixed plural or a word with an indeterminate gender, the default form is the masculine. It gets more strange in the Romance languages without the neuter gender. In French, it is always "he" who rains or beams sunnily, as in "Il pleut, il fait beau." Same in Italian, but since the pronoun is usually omitted, it's not obvious.
The feminists' wrath against the use of "he" as the default for the indeterminate pronoun is the cause of the new use of the plural pronoun instead. There are plenty of us old-timers who hate this usage although having some (not much) sympathy with the ladies. I do not like a usage like "If anyone wants a cup of coffee, they will have to go to the kitchen for it." But this has become so common that now it's getting to be a mindless reflex and you have outrages like "If any new mother wants home nurse visits, they will have to call the Home Service Dept." Or, "If any father wants to sign up as a coach, they need to see Joe Smith." I have actually, and more than once, heard such a sentence used by newscasters. It has got to the point where this neologistic plural is used for all purposes, even where there is only one gender involved.
I think that gender differentiation is necessary. I am female and I don't like that fact to be ignored. What I do object to is treatment that is sub-standard because of my gender.
The contention of feminists rejecting the gender-specific article is that gender differentiation must occur before discrimination can set in. Eliminate one prerequisite and you've stalled the discrimination process.
I come from a 93% female profession (nursing) where gender association , (not outright gender distinction) dissuades more men from entering our ancient and esteemed calling. A male colleague of mine suggested, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that a name not synonymous with breastfeeding would enhance the percentage of men attracted to our profession. Ah, the power of language.
Brother Faldage inquireth, "Thou art one, Byb [who disdaineth 'they' for 'he']?"
Yea, marry, forsooth, that I be. Fight the good fight for your rights, my ladies faire, and I'm with you. But ye wenches that would brawl in the streets, aroint ye! And yart me no yarts! Have respect to the integrity of our ancient and honourable tongue!
Here endeth the BYB indeterminate pronoun rant, once for all.
that a name not synonymous with breastfeeding would enhance the percentage of men attracted to our profession. Good heavens, Teresa--I'll bet he's right! Did he have any suggestions?
(Special for BobY) And if any man wants to offer a suggestion, they can see BYB. [scampering hurriedly out of reach e]Sorry, Sweetie, I just couldn't resist an opportunity like that.)
No, Jackie, he didn't. "Nursing" has been so long associated with caregiving, and accepted as the title of our profession, that maybe what should change is the association of nursing with breastfeeding. This might be easier to achieve. We already have breastfeeding, suckling and lactating to describe the act of giving, producing or receiving human milk, but we have no synonyms for nursing as a profession.
A male colleague of mine suggested, not entirely tongue-in-cheek, that a name not synonymous with breastfeeding would enhance the percentage of men attracted to our profession.
I have got to pass that on to my wife, who teaches nursing. aside: how different the above sentence would be without the comma!
About 20 years ago, the elderly Father who was then President of DePaul University commented to her that Nursing must be somehow less than the school's other academic fields, in that the others do not end in -ing: there is no "sciencing"; "englishing", etc. He was brought up short when someone pointed out "engineering". he would not have understood had someone mentioned "frenching"
Of course, getting away from the digressions, we could simplify the language even more by taking all gender references out, particularly pronouns. Sentences would read like "The woman went shopping and it bought a new pair of knickers". Perfectly logical, and totally understandable, I would have thought. And that would get rid of the whole gender-related shambles!
which would brings us closer to japanese.. japanese pronouns are gender neutral. and just as japanese speaking english tend to say fright for flight they also tend to say "the man went shopping and she bought a new suit" She is close to sho-- which is an honorable term for a man, (as in Sho gun) and Sho can also be a mans name. the problems doesn't come in japanese, because they use one pronoun-- for men, women and dogs..
and teresa, when the dog starts carrying a credit card, i will start to wonder who it was that was buying the the knickers, but i realize it could be confusing. my sister has to pay strict attention in conversational japanese to keep track of who is it in any given conversation!
Oh, hell, why bring logic into it? Ever heard of context? Okay, Teresa, here goes:
Your original sentence: The woman and her dog went shopping and it bought a new pair of knickers
You will retrospectively note, of course, that you used a gender-laden pronoun - her.
My perfectly logical response. Rewrite (correcting your pronoun on the way) as:
The woman(1) and its(1) dog(2)* went shopping, and it(1) bought a pair of new knickers.
Now, isn't that much more neat and tidy and totally understandable? Why can't all English be as clear and easy to follow, hmmm?
* Although dogs going shopping are definitely a rarity, whichever sex they are. Or so I believe. Well, in New Zealand anyway. And I haven't noticed many ... erp, any ... here in Pommyland, either.
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Sorry, Sweetie, I just couldn't resist an opportunity like that.)
