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Re: Tech Gender (and finally, what does Tech mean?)

From:Daniel A. Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Wednesday, January 5, 2000, 21:41
>From: Dan Sulani <dnsulani@...>
>On 4 Jan, Danny Wier wrote:
> >there is a true meaning to gender. Masculine usually indicates initiator >or > >the 'sower of seed'; feminine marks completor or 'the grower of seed' >(i.e. > >the earth). Neuter is typically the end product: the 'seed' itself.
> I like the idea. But what about "products" that may >(or, then again, may not) turn into initiators or completors? >Although "child" (seen as a "product") could be neuter >(as it in fact is in German), what about "boy" and "girl": >both "results of" and yet both potentially initiators or >completers? And what gender is the word for adult male >or adult female, considering that at one and the same time they >are both "product" of the previous generation and >initiator/completor of the next one? Or should there be >separate words for "product-adults" and for "initiator/completor-adults"?
Well 'boy' and 'girl' are of course masculine and feminine because both have natural gender. (You never have words like 'maiden', 'virgin' as neuters like in German _Ma"dchen_, in other words). 'Child' is a strange case; one of the words is neuter when used to connotate 'offspring', 'seed', 'begotten' -- but masculine (in the inclusive sense) if you're talking about the meaning of 'child'. So there might be four genders, if I split the masculine into exclusive (male only) and inclusive (either gender). Don't know if I'll do that, and yes I know it's very sexist (as well as very characteristic of Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European). You can't have a 'masculine neuter', for instance. 'Neuter' is pretty much a generic noun class until otherwise defined. A 'son' is not only the results of an action of 'being begotten of a father and born of a mother', but he himself has the ability in the future to be a father himself. So the masculine gender would be used even in infancy. Fortunately, Jesus Christ has the pronouns 'He/Him/His', not 'It/Its'. Danny ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com