Modern English is said to have ‘natural gender’ - male people/animals are maculine, female people/animals are feminine, and inanimates and unsexed animals are neuter. As English does not inflect because of gender its use makes little impact on a sentence.
Old English had a gender system similar to that of Modern German. The Old English genders did not disappear overnight, but faded out gradually. In Middle English, the pronoun its did not exist, it was his, and the application of neuter gender to all inanimates was a slow process. Some aspects of grammatical gender remained. There was a tendency to retain, or even modify, the gender of great natural wonders as masculine, and keep, or make, vessels and utensils feminine. The Oxford English Dictionary describes mountains, oaks and rivers as among the word most often considered masculine. It cites ships, carts and pans as often considered feminine. There is little connexion here with Old English genders (where a ship is neuter), but there remained a sense that grammatical gender was not necessarily ‘natural’. The Westcountry was one place where gender rules were quite odd. Here’s an old Devonshire saying:
In Dem, ees a er an ers a ee, all cept th’aud Tomcat, an even ees a er!
In Devon, he’s a her and she’s a he, all except the old Tom cat, and even he’s a her!
In poetry, abstract nouns often become engendered: "Melancholy slid her veil over my heart". In Modern English it is still common for vehicles (especially ships and boats) to be considered feminine: "The Luna was the fastest yacht in the harbour: her bow split the Channel like the Red Sea".
Many people find the application of non-neuter gender to inanimate objects in English offensive.
- Garzo.
