Re:Apple asks suppliers to shift AirPods, Beats production t...
by mdrzn on Thursday October 06, 2022 @04:34AM
(#33105954)
> L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish.
What? LA automobile is female.
> Il barco La barchetta
"IL barco" doesn't mean anything, it's "LA barca" which, again, is female.
I'd say that generally speaking "it's female when they contain people" is correct, but of course not always (LO ufficio = the office).
While I like the theory, its cute, I dont know that that's true. L'automobile is male in Italian and Spanish. And its easy for a native speaker in either language to come up with numerous examples.
In fact gender really is just grammar. We shouldn't see much into it trying to project ourselves into it. Otherwise, why can the same object have different genders through synonyms? Again:
La macchina L'automobile.
La yerba (granted in Spanish its lost its meaning as grass) El cesped
La nave Il barco
La embarcación El bote
Or changes from the addition of a mere diminutive:
Il banco La bancarella
Il barco La barchetta
Gender is just a classification, largely binary (although Spanish retains the neuter) that got the unfortunate sexual labels of male and female