quote: You may not know that many non-living things have a gender. For example:
1) Ziploc Bags -- They are Male, because they hold everything in, but you can see right through them.
2) Copiers -- They are Female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm them up again. It's an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can wreak havoc if the wrong buttons are pushed.
3) Tire -- Male, because it goes bald and it's often over-inflated.
4) Hot Air Balloon -- Male, because, to get it to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under it and, of course, there's the hot air component.
5) Sponges -- Female, because they're soft, squeezable and retain water.
6) Web Page -- Female, because it's always getting hit on.
7) Subway -- Male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.
8) Hourglass -- Female, because over time, the weight can shift to the bottom.
9) Hammer -- Male, because it hasn't changed much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.
10) Remote Control -- Female. Ha! You thought it'd be Male. But consider this -- it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.
Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
quote:Remote Control -- Female. Ha! You thought it'd be Male. But consider this -- it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.
*giggles
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
This is my favorite:
quote: Subway -- Male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
That is funny.
What I thought of when I saw this thread title was my Volvo. I always think of cars as female, yet the Volvo is a male car. There is a man symbol on the logo, ever notice that? A friend said a car in Germany is also male. How about France and Italy? Other countries?
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
The word 'car' is masculine in Norwegian. You know, grammaticists (is that a word?) could have saved considerable trouble by classifying words as Type A, Type B, and Type C, isntead. For example, 'a girl' is masculine. 'A child' is neutral, which makes sense, but 'a rock' is masculine, which doesn't. Then there's the interesting fact that my particular dialect of Norwegian does not use the feminine gender at all.
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
Car is feminine in French (la voiture) and Russian (машина). Hmm, actually looks like it can be masculine in Russian too: автомобиль. (Actually, "car" in French means "because", but that's a different story.)
KoM, that's cool that your dialect doesn't use the feminine gender. I guess in some languages the connection between grammatical gender and "real" gender is stronger than in others.
*is a closet linguist*
Posted by Ophelia (Member # 653) on :
The German word for car is neutral. At least, "Auto" is.
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
We use 2 words for car: neutral "auto", and male "samochod".
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
We don't have the neutral gender for inanimate objects, in Portuguese, so everything is either male or female.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
I find this fascinating. Thanks!
Posted by Mike (Member # 55) on :
"Samochod" sounds like a pretty literal translation of automobile. Not that I know Polish or anything...
The "ch" is like the Russian "х", yes?
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
umm. I guess?
sam= self chodzic= walk
--
the ending would be the same as in the Russian Lunokhod (moon walker).
[ November 02, 2004, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: Kama ]
Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
We use two words too... "auto" and "mechonit," or מכונית.
Posted by Magson (Member # 2300) on :
quote:sam= self chodzic= walk
Nearly the same in English, actually --
auto = self mobile = able to move
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
quote:10) Remote Control -- Female. Ha! You thought it'd be Male. But consider this -- it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.
Programmable. 'Nuff said.
Posted by MEC (Member # 2968) on :
I noticed that most of the male objects are male because they have the same properties of males, but most of the female ones are females because they have to deal with the same stuff as females...
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Using the standard Hebrew keyboard, the ן is the key that is "i" on an English keyboard.
Posted by Vv009vV (Member # 2568) on :
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)