Re: Another question: genders

Padraic Brown wrote:

> On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> >"H. S. Teoh" wrote:
> >> Well, "hermaphroditic" may have negative connotations in English, but the
> >> ambivalent gender in the language doesn't. It's merely a distinction that
> >> the particularly picky culture behind the language has chosen to make.
> >> Perhaps I should just stick with "ambivalent", esp. if other words have
> >> negative connotations associated with them :-)
> >
> >No, I meant that the word "ambivalent" has negative connotations,
>
> Just poking my head in: what negative connotations does ambivalent
> have for you? Me, I'm neither one way nor the other.
I think in some circumstances, 'ambivalent' can carry the connotation
of being without passion, and perhaps even being without values
about something.  That's kinda the problem: 'ambivalent' is normally
used to imbue some feeling to something.  Grammatical systems,
of course, do not have feelings, unless you subscribe to a *really*
weird system of metaphysics.

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Tom Wier   |     "Cogito ergo sum, sed credo ergo ero."
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