Re: Metrical Stress, Feet, Syllables, Genders, Email Servers etc.

Philippe Caquant wrote:
> OK, I forgot that there are 3 genders in English and
> that a computer should be referred to as neutral. But
> is this really justified ? I conceive a computer like
> something intermediar between human and inanimated. So
> maybe English should invent a 4th gender for IT.
But, "it" is used for any non-living thing, and a computer's certainly
not alive*.  "It" is even used for plants and many animals.  Except for
biologists, I think most English speakers would use "it" for non-mammals
(unless, perhaps, for a pet snake or bird or the like, but to refer to a
random bird as "he" or "she" sounds strange, unless gender is important,
like talking about a mother bird tending *her* nest), and even many
unfamiliar mammals are "it".  Some speakers will even use "it" for any
non-human, even a pet cat or dog (I associate this with older speakers,
but that may be an erroneous impression).  So, I see no reason to call a
computer anything but "it".

(And if there were to be any changes in English gender, I would rather
prefer a simplification to either human/non-human or animate/inanimate
or no gender)

*Of course, in sci-fi, humanoid robots are generally referred to by the
pronoun appropriate for the gender they resemble, i.e., "he" if the
robot looks male, "she" if the robot looks female.  Same with sentient
computers.  But there's nothing sentient or humanoid about the computer
I use.  :-)

Is "computer" masculine in French?  In Spanish, IIRC, it's feminine, la
computadora.

--
"There's no such thing as 'cool'.  Everyone's just a big dork or nerd,
you just have to find people who are dorky the same way you are." -
overheard
ICQ: 18656696
AIM Screen-Name: NikTaylor42

Replies