Gender. In English, living things are classed as male or female, and things without life as neuter, or sexless. In the same way, words are said to belong to the masculine, the feminine, or the neuter gender. Neuter and gender are derived from Latin words meaning neither and kind. The word animal may represent either a male or female creature. Such words are said to be of common gender. These four classifications cover all nouns and pronouns, and explain all the English genders.
English is the only important language in which gender is largely determined semantically—that is, by the sex of the object for which the word stands. Some other languages use gender grammatically. For example, a French feminine hand (la main) opens the feminine door (la porte) of a feminine house (la maison). In German, a neuter girl (Madchen) gazes at a masculine moon (Mond) in a feminine night (Nacht). Several other modern European languages have this same system of gender. Latin has a similar use of gender.
Personal pronouns
are the only pronouns that have different forms to show gender. These forms are in the third person singular—he, his, him, she, her, hers, it, its. The gender of others may be assumed for a particular use if one knows that I, me, my, mine, you stand for male or female. It and its are usually neuter, but not always. A young child may be represented by it or its, as in, “The infant cried for its food.”
Nouns
show the difference between the masculine and feminine gender in three ways.
Some nouns have different forms for the masculineand the feminine. Examples are man, woman; boy, girl; lad, lass; husband, wife; cock, hen; stallion, mare; gander, goose; buck, doe; beau, belle; wizard, witch.
Many masculine nouns have been made feminine by adding the suffixes ess, ine, ina, trix, ne, a, or ette. Sometimes a letter in the masculine is changed or omitted when the suffix is added. Some examples are actor, actress; waiter, waitress; usher, usherette; heir, heiress; duke, duchess; prior, prioress; prince, princess; Paul, Pauline; Angelo, Angela or Angelina; comedian, comedienne; administrator, administratrix; Louis, Louisa; sultan, sultana. Many such feminine forms are importations from other languages, especially from French.
Many words of common gender are made either masculine or feminine by prefixing a word. Examples are billy goat, nanny goat; he-bear, she-bear.
Usage.
Grammarians of the 1700’s and 1800’s recommended that nouns of common gender and indefinite pronouns be followed in English by the masculine pronoun. “Every member of the group has to pay his dues.” However, usage today increasingly favors avoiding the showing of any sexual preference. Some speakers use his or her, him or her, or even himself or herself. Others substitute the feminine form or choose plural forms wherever possible.
