About the origins of the word "gender"

submitted by BiologyIsReal from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]SnowAssMan 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

In German the word for sex & gender is the same. Not a convenient language for your argument. If neutering your dog isn't a sex change then neuter gender is tantamount to saying agender i.e. lacking a gender.

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

What does neutering your dog have to do with grammar? Grammatical gender is not the same as sex. You're showing off how little you know about grammar, but keep it going. Here, grammatical gender in German and I only spent five minutes searching the Web:

https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/german-easy-learning/gender

In German a noun can be masculine, feminine or neuter. Gender is quite unpredictable – the best thing is simply to learn each noun with its definite article, that is the word for the (der, die or das) which goes with it:

https://deutsch.lingolia.com/en/grammar/nouns-and-articles/gender

The gender of German nouns can be identified by the article they take; der for masculine, die for feminine and das for neuter.

https://mydailygerman.com/german-articles/

The German language has three genders. This means, that nouns are either masculine, feminine or neutral.

You're welcome.

[–]SnowAssMan 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Neuter means neither. "Neither gender" is not a gender, it's a lack of gender. It's like saying that "no apples" is an "amount of apples". It's not true, but you might say it in the context of talking about people with apples.

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Let's consult the Oxford Dictionary, shall we?

https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/neuter_1?q=neuter

neuter adjective

(grammar)

​(in some languages) belonging to a class of nouns, pronouns, adjectives or verbs whose gender is not feminine or masculine

   The Polish word for ‘window’ is neuter.

I guess Polish is another language you could study if you don't like German.

It's okay, Snow. The neuter gender is a thing is grammar. You can admit you made a mistake. It will be easier that keep making easily refutable claims.

[–]SnowAssMan 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

See my previous reply. This is kind of like arguing that zero is a number just bc it's referred to as such for convenient's sake.

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

No, it isn't. In grammar, gender refer to a class of words. So, yes, neuter gender is a thing in some languages. Grammatical gender is related to sex, but is not the same thing and even when talking about feminine and masculine gender, it not always correlates with sex. For example, the Spanish word for table is feminine despite it has no sex. The German word for baby is neuter despite that babies do have a sex (example taken from the first link on German grammar in my other comment).

Or maybe you want to redefine words as you please. So, what is you problem with neuter gender?

[–]SnowAssMan 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

see my previous reply.

[–]BiologyIsReal[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I guess you ran out of arguments.