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From: callas@eris.DEC (This space intentionally blank)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: homo/vir
Message-ID: <387@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 30-Jan-85 10:34:41 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.387
Posted: Wed Jan 30 10:34:41 1985
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	       Harrumph, harrumph. Then I'd expect that 'homo' would be of
	       neuter gender, which Latin provides, but it's male. The "default
	       sex" in Latin is male, just as in every language I ever heard of.
	       (If there are exceptions, does this coincide with a less
	       male-supremacist culture?)

        You can "Harrumph" all you want, but it doesn't change the fact
        that "homo" means "human" and "vir" means "adult male." What
        gender a language uses for a word often bears little resemblance
        to what the word means. In French, the word for 'ovary' is
        masculine. Getting back to Latin, the word "virtus," from which
        we get 'virtue,' means "The qualities of being manly." However,
        it is a feminine word. If I may pick a nit, "homo" is not male,
        it is masculine. Words do not have sex, they have gender. This
        applies to many other things. For example, clothes. A skirt (at
        least in our culture) is feminine. It is not female.

	       But apparently contracts written in archaic French  refer to
	       "personnes", which is of course feminine in French. And then to
	       keep the gender straight, so to speak, the contract refers to
	       these persons as "elles" [they, female] later on. How would
	       modern French handle this? --John Purbrick

        The same way. Plural 'they' in legal documuments is "elles."


        Jon Callas
        ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-eris!callas