Re: Gender (was: Homosexuality and gender identity)

En réponse à Mark J. Reed :


>Thereby avoiding such circumlocutions as (if I'm remembering this
>right) "la femme docteur", which means something like "the doctor-woman".
Yes, or awkward addressing phrases like "madame le docteur" :)) . There was
a whole debate a few years ago on how to address female ministers ("madame
le ministre"? "madame la ministre"? One female minister said once people
were so confused a journalist even called her "monsieur la ministre" ;))) ).

>The noun "docteur" is masculine, so in order to form a feminine noun phrase
>which agrees with the referent, the noun is replaced by "femme" ("woman")
>and the "docteur" becomes a sort of modifier.
Yep, but the whole phrase is extremely awkward in French. The strangest
part about it is that the feminine does exist, and has existed for a long
time. It's "doctoresse". I used to hear it quite often 20 years ago, but it
fell in disuse (strangely enough while the number of female doctors rose
sharply during that time), and it now takes hardcore feminists to ask for
its reuse...

Christophe Grandsire.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.