Geese

[Daniel0]

The adjective isn't plural, it just has a different form when referring to a plural noun. Only nouns are singular or plural.

 

I don't know which languages you speak, but in three out of the four languages I speak, adjectives can be plural.

[Jessica]

Well we're talking about English here, so what language do you THINK I am speaking of.

http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blgr_adjectives.htm

Adjectives don't have a singular and plural form OR a masculine, femine and neuter form.

 

I mistyped when I said they can have a plural form. That is not what I meant, but I can't figure out how to word what I meant.

 

In English, adjectives are NEVER plural or singular. They DESCRIBE words which can be plural or singular, which are NOUNS.

[GingerRobot]

I think maybe the English language is just to inconsistent for something like this =S

 

Can somebody please tell me one that is consistent?

 

As was pretty much pointed out earlier, ALL languages have their irregularities(perhaps with the exception of contructed languages such as Esperanto). Languages evolve with usage, hence why the most used parts of language tend to be the ones which least follow the rules. Taking french as an example, the most irregular verbs are the most common - avoir(to have), etre(to be), faire (to do) - whilst the majority of obscure verbs are regular. I dont think you notice this so much with your primary language; its far more noticeble when you have to make the effort to learn a new one(hence why i gave the example from french)

[Daniel0]

Well we're talking about English here, so what language do you THINK I am speaking of.

http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blgr_adjectives.htm

Adjectives don't have a singular and plural form OR a masculine, femine and neuter form.

 

I mistyped when I said they can have a plural form. That is not what I meant, but I can't figure out how to word what I meant.

 

In English, adjectives are NEVER plural or singular. They DESCRIBE words which can be plural or singular, which are NOUNS.

 

I know you can't in English, and I specifically said so in a previous post:

In English you can't have plural adjectives

 

I was talking about languages in general, but whatever, it's kind off off topic anyways.

[Azu]

English doesn't have gendered nouns!

What about "man" and "woman"?

[Jessica]

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean.

In case of the latter, nouns in other languages are often masculine, feminine or neuter. They will often have different grammar rules based on the gender, or specific articles. For example, in German the masculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

[Barand]

... and

 

aviator, aviatrix

actor, actress

 

Although thanks (doubtful) to the "political correctness" movement these are disappearing to be replaced by a neuter gender eg

 

chairman, chairwoman => chairperson or even "chair" !

[Jessica]

That is not what I meant. Those are just nouns which refer to a certain sex. The nouns themselves are not gendered, since we don't have seperate articles for different gendered nouns. We don't call a desk a she, like other languages. We call it an "it".

Was it Mark Twain who wrote the fishwife story?

If you've ever studied German this is a great read: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html

[Barand]

Ships are always referred to as "she"

[neylitalo]

Ships are always referred to as "she"

 

Well, technically, you could call a ship an "it" and it would be grammatically correct - but yes, it's very often considered impolite to refer to a ship or boat as anything but female.

 

And a bit of trivia: As ships and boats are female, submarines are male.

[Barand]

Jesirose - Looked at the German language link. Only 4 cases ?

 

Nominative--Mein gutER Freund, my good friend.

Genitives--MeinES GutEN FreundES, of my good friend.

Dative--MeinEM gutEN Freund, to my good friend.

Accusative--MeinEN gutEN Freund, my good friend.

 

Try Latin

 

Nominative

Vocative

Accusative

Genative

Dative

Ablative

 

 

 

submarines are male.

Shape related thing?

[Jessica]

Latin sucked, that's why I switched

[neylitalo]

submarines are male.

Shape related thing?

 

After doing a bit more research into the origin of the "tradition", I think I may have been mistaken. As it turns out, all sailing vessels are traditionally referred to as "she", but it's common for sailors and captains to refer to vessels not their own in the masculine sense. I'm not exactly sure where I heard that submarines are masculine.

 

And apparently ships are referred to in the feminine sense because it costs so much to keep them "in paint and powder".

[Barand]

and constantly demanding attention

[Azu]

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean.

In case of the latter, nouns in other languages are often masculine, feminine or neuter. They will often have different grammar rules based on the gender, or specific articles. For example, in German the masculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

I'm sorry for offending you. I didn't mean to.

 

And I still don't get what you meant. How exactly is the German "der" different from the English "man" or German "die" different from English "Woman"?? *confused*

 

Gender means whether something has male or female sexual organs, so how could it apply to anything besides men and women (and animals)?

[neylitalo]

How exactly is the German "der" different from the English "man" or German "die" different from English "Woman"?? *confused*

 

Gender means whether something has male or female sexual organs, so how could it apply to anything besides men and women (and animals)?

 

It's a difficult concept for people whose languages don't have that particular feature, so don't feel too bad.

 

In many languages, certain nouns are assigned a gender, regardless of whether or not the object of interest actually has a gender, and often the noun's gender doesn't always make sense. A few examples:

 

In French, "The car" translates to "la voiture", but "the boat" translates to "le bateau". Notice the different prefixes - "car" is feminine, where "boat" is masculine. But here's the tricky part: The car we're speaking of is not male, it can't be. The word is masculine. To give you an idea of what I mean, in French, "the person" translates to "la personne", even if the person of interest is not female. The word is prefixed with "la", so the word is in the feminine sense, but it makes no implications as to the gender of the person. The person could very well be a man.

 

It works the same way in German. (Many others as well, but I can only say Spanish for sure.) The "die" prefix is assigned to certain nouns, and the "der" prefix is assigned to others. "The tree", for example, is "der baum", so it's masculine, but "the cat" is "die katze", so it's feminine. And where "the car", in French, was feminine, it is "das auto" in German, and has no gender. In reality, the tree has no gender, and the cat could well be a male, but the words are always prefixed the same.

 

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean. sculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

I'm sorry for offending you. I didn't mean to.

 

I should probably let her speak for herself, but I'm fairly certain you didn't offend her - it appears that she realized that it was possible that you simply didn't understand.

 

And as a side note: I didn't know those translations off of the top of my head. The babelfish is awesome.

[Daniel0]

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean.

In case of the latter, nouns in other languages are often masculine, feminine or neuter. They will often have different grammar rules based on the gender, or specific articles. For example, in German the masculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

I'm sorry for offending you. I didn't mean to.

 

And I still don't get what you meant. How exactly is the German "der" different from the English "man" or German "die" different from English "Woman"?? *confused*

 

Gender means whether something has male or female sexual organs, so how could it apply to anything besides men and women (and animals)?

 

It's different in the way that "der" and "die" (and "das") are articles and "man" and "woman" are nouns.

 

In Danish there are two genders: common gender and neuter. "Et hus" (neuter - "a house"), "en bil" (common gender - "a car").

 

neylitalo: I don't know if already you know that, but nouns are always capitalized in German (thus "das Auto" and not "das auto").

[neylitalo]

neylitalo: I don't know if already you know that, but nouns are always capitalized in German (thus "das Auto" and not "das auto").

 

I didn't know that. Thanks.

[Azu]

How exactly is the German "der" different from the English "man" or German "die" different from English "Woman"?? *confused*

 

Gender means whether something has male or female sexual organs, so how could it apply to anything besides men and women (and animals)?

 

It's a difficult concept for people whose languages don't have that particular feature, so don't feel too bad.

 

In many languages, certain nouns are assigned a gender, regardless of whether or not the object of interest actually has a gender, and often the noun's gender doesn't always make sense. A few examples:

 

In French, "The car" translates to "la voiture", but "the boat" translates to "le bateau". Notice the different prefixes - "car" is feminine, where "boat" is masculine. But here's the tricky part: The car we're speaking of is not male, it can't be. The word is masculine. To give you an idea of what I mean, in French, "the person" translates to "la personne", even if the person of interest is not female. The word is prefixed with "la", so the word is in the feminine sense, but it makes no implications as to the gender of the person. The person could very well be a man.

 

It works the same way in German. (Many others as well, but I can only say Spanish for sure.) The "die" prefix is assigned to certain nouns, and the "der" prefix is assigned to others. "The tree", for example, is "der baum", so it's masculine, but "the cat" is "die katze", so it's feminine. And where "the car", in French, was feminine, it is "das auto" in German, and has no gender. In reality, the tree has no gender, and the cat could well be a male, but the words are always prefixed the same.

 

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean. sculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

I'm sorry for offending you. I didn't mean to.

 

I should probably let her speak for herself, but I'm fairly certain you didn't offend her - it appears that she realized that it was possible that you simply didn't understand.

 

And as a side note: I didn't know those translations off of the top of my head. The babelfish is awesome.

 

Thanks for the explanation! I just have one more question now.. how do you decide whether the object should be considered a female noun, or a male noun?

[neylitalo]

how do you decide whether the object should be considered a female noun, or a male noun?

 

As far as I know, there isn't any rule to determining the gender (or absence of gender) of any given noun, you just have to memorize them. There are usually general rules as to how to spell feminine, masculine, and neuter nouns, but there are usually (always?) exceptions.

 

Ah, the fun little quirks of language and grammar.

[GingerRobot]

Thanks for the explanation! I just have one more question now.. how do you decide whether the object should be considered a female noun, or a male noun?

 

As neylitalo says, there are some general rules - but also many exceptions. Taking french:

 

Most nouns ending in é,age, eau, ège and isme are male, whilst those ending in ée, tion, itude, ience and ité are female. There are hundreds of exceptions though.

 

And as was touched upon, you cannot assume that any conotations of a word would be linked to its gender. To give my favourite example, the word feminism (which is the very similar féminisme) is actually a male word!

[Azu]

Okay thanks guys.. so what exactly does a word being "male" or "female" mean? Like do you use them differently or something? If so how so?

[Jessica]

Either you're being a smart ass, or you really have no idea what I mean.

In case of the latter, nouns in other languages are often masculine, feminine or neuter. They will often have different grammar rules based on the gender, or specific articles. For example, in German the masculine is der, feminine is die, and neuter is das.

I'm sorry for offending you. I didn't mean to.

 

And I still don't get what you meant. How exactly is the German "der" different from the English "man" or German "die" different from English "Woman"?? *confused*

 

Gender means whether something has male or female sexual organs, so how could it apply to anything besides men and women (and animals)?

 

No, sex has to do with male and female organs. Gender is something different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_(grammar)

 

It's just that it scares the politicians when we say sex, so people started using gender to mean sex. Asking for a person's gender is silly. It's their sex. With all other mammals, they are sexed, they are either male or female. Americans are just scared of the word sex.

 

And no, I wasn't offended, I just figured you were trying to be funny. I guess because English doesn't have this concept, you wouldn't know about gendered nouns unless you'd studied a language that does. Spanish, French, German, etc. The most common ones taught in schools.

[Jessica]

You don't use the nouns differently, but different grammar rules apply to them. In english, if you want to say "My something", it's always My. If you say The something, it's always The, same with A, Yours, etc.

In German, My could be mein or meine. (Now it's been a long time so don't assume I have the exact rules right.) Mein is for masculine and feminine nouns. Meine is feminine. The is either die das or der. A is ein or eine. Yours is dien or dienen (I think?)

 

If you read that Mark Twain story I posted it actually goes over a lot of the rules.

 

You pretty much have to memorize what gender a noun is.

[Daniel0]

how do you decide whether the object should be considered a female noun, or a male noun?

 

As far as I know, there isn't any rule to determining the gender (or absence of gender) of any given noun, you just have to memorize them. There are usually general rules as to how to spell feminine, masculine, and neuter nouns, but there are usually (always?) exceptions.

 

Ah, the fun little quirks of language and grammar.

 

There are rules to determine the gender of a word (at least in some languages). In German for example nouns ending with -in and -e are very often feminine. Nouns ending with -chen are very often neuter (hence the reason why "Mädchen" (girl) is neuter and not feminine as you might think). Those are just a few of the rules.

 

In Spanish, words ending with -o are often masculine and words ending with -a, -ión or -ad are often feminine. There are exceptions of course, words like "día" (day) and "sistema" are masculine despite ending with -a. Thus it's called "un día" and "un sistema" and not "una día" and "una sistema".

 

Yours is dien or dienen (I think?)

Swap i with e (dein)