16 Apr
1999
16 Apr
'99
2:05 p.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: Merle K. Peirce <at258(a)osfn.org>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Sent: Saturday, April 17, 1999 11:29 AM
Subject: Re: OT: City Names
Oh? Can you give me an example? If so, it demonstrates that gender is
irrelevant in English I guess.
Perhaps it had gender once? I think Latin had gender and we use a lot of
Latin words.
> Well, no not really. Simply doesn't exist in
English. Everything is
um,
neuter I
guess, we don't have a term for it that we didn't pinch from
another language actually.
We certainly do have gender, but usually the forms are identical. Inflection in English is very restricted, compared say
to German or the
classical languages.
Make it "virtually nonexistent" and I'll go along with that.
Since our adjectives have the same form for each
gender, it's not
noticeable,
and hasn't been that way for say 800 years
or so.
The existence of gender in English is not taught at school.. I'd remember
that.
I was exposed to French briefly in 1st Year High. It was the first time I
heard of the concept.
(Dropped it as irrelevant after a term and did Tech Drawing instead)
Cheers
Geoff Roberts