Gender (was: Homosexuality and gender identity)

Hendricus Theiling scripsit:

> Only for younger people. It changed towards that pronoun in the last two
> decades or so. Before that, you'd *always* use neuter pronouns. Nowadays,
> neuter pronouns tend to be used when they are very close to 'Mädchen'
> but feminine pronouns when the distance is larger. At least, that's
> my impression. I'd still say that correct, written German only uses
> neuter pronouns.
That was my understanding as well.

There is an interesting sort-of parallel in French: the normal 3pl pronoun
for groups of human beings is "ils" (m.) and "elles" (f.) is used only for
groups containing females only.

However, in legal writing one finds "elles" being applied to groups,
referring back to the antecedent "personnes"; when the antecedent gets
far enough away, the writer sometimes forgets and writes "personnes ...
elles ... elles ... ils ... ils ... ils".

--
John Cowan <jcowan@...> www.ccil.org/~cowan  www.reutershealth.com
Micropayment advocates mistakenly believe that efficient allocation of
resources is the purpose of markets.  Efficiency is a byproduct of market
systems, not their goal.  The reasons markets work are not because users
have embraced efficiency but because markets are the best place to allow
users to maximize their preferences, and very often their preferences are
not for conservation of cheap resources.  --Clay Shirkey

Replies