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

From:Nik Taylor <yonjuuni@...>
Date:Tuesday, February 10, 2004, 21:00
Christophe Grandsire wrote:
> Nonsense. It's just that since French doesn't have a neuter gender, we are > obliged to assign gender to everything, even things strictly inanimate, and > that makes it easier for us to personify things. But it doesn't say > anything about the things themselves being animate.
As I thought, Sapir-Whorf at work again. *G*
> Dutch has > not problem using this demonstrative pronoun as a kind of epicene animate > third person personal pronoun.
Does this mean that they can use it where colloquial English uses "singular they" or he/she? I.e., an epicene way of referring to humans? -- "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

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Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>