Gender in Grammar

What Is Gender in Grammar?

Gender is a category of noun. A noun can have a masculine gender, a feminine gender, or a neuter gender.

Easy Examples of Gender

• man (masculine gender)
• woman (feminine gender)
• house (neuter gender)
• chicken (neuter gender – if we don’t know if it’s a rooster or a hen)

Masculine Gender

The names of male animals or persons are said to be of the masculine gender; as, man, boy, lion, hero, king, father.

Masculine Gender

Horse

Husband

King

Man

Feminine Gender

Even though they are not literally female, ships and other machines are sometimes affectionately given a feminine gender.

Feminine gender; as, woman, girl, lioness, heroine, queen, mother.

Noun	Gender	Example
boat	Neuter	I have worked on this boat all my life. It is a beauty.
boat	Feminine	I have worked on this boat all my life. She is a beauty.

Common Gender

The names of things which indicate either the masculine or the feminine are said to be of the common gender; as, baby, child, cousin, servant, parent, friend, pupil, person, student, orphan, teacher, deer, sheep, calf, neighbour.

Neuter Gender

The name of things that are neither male nor female (i.e., things without life) are said to be of the neuter gender; as, book, table, chair, pen, stone.

 [Neuter means neither, i.e., neither male nor female.]

More Examples of Gender

In English, the gender of a noun affects the pronouns we use with it (e.g., he, she, it) and the possessive determiners (e.g., his, her, its). For example:

• The man ripped his new coat, which he only bought yesterday.
• The woman lost her blue shoes, which she had never worn.
• The dog chewed its leather collar, which it hated.

While there are lots of gender-specific nouns in English (e.g., actor, actress, prince, princess), a normal noun (e.g., parent, cousin, teenager, teacher) doesn’t reflect its gender until it is substituted for a pronoun or used with a possessive determiner.

Genders Can Change in English

In English, nouns are categorized as masculine, feminine, or neuter depending on their meaning. Most nouns are neuter unless they obviously refer to something male or female.

(Only the third person pronouns (i.e., he, his, she, her, hers, it, and its) reflect gender.

In many other languages (e.g., Russian, Serbo-Croat, and German), the spelling of a noun (as opposed to its meaning) often determines its gender.

For example, if a noun ends -a (in Russian or Serbo-Croat) or ends –heit (in German), then it will be feminine. This is not how it works in English, where gender is directly linked to whether something is male or female. In English, gender can even change.

Look at these examples:

Noun	Gender	Example
Dog	Neuter	Where’s its bone?
Dog	Masculine	Where’s his bone?
Dog	Feminine	Where’s her bone?

Why Should I Care about Gender?

There are three notable issues linked to gender.

(Issue 1) Finding an alternative to his/her.

Look at these sentences:

• Each person must understand where he fits in the team.
• Anyone who forgets his passport will be sent home.

But what if they’re not all male? Using he or his for unknown people was the accepted practice, but no longer. It is, of course, sexist and inaccurate.

To get around this, you could write:

• Each person must understand where he/she fits in the team.
• Anyone who forgets his or her passport will be sent home.

But, as they’re clumsy solutions, lots of people naturally opt for this:

• Each person must understand where they fit in the team.
• Anyone who forgets their passport will be sent home.

This has been going on for over six centuries, and so it sounds fine. However, we now have person and anyone (both of which are singular) paired up with they and their (both of which are plural).

• Anyone who forgets their passport will be sent home.
• If you forget your passport, you will be sent home.

(Issue 2) Choosing the right version of blonde/blond.

The word blond/blonde changes depending on its gender.

Blond is a noun meaning a fair-haired male.

• The blond has nice shoes.

Blond is also an adjective used to describe anybody (regardless of their gender) with fair hair.

• The blond girl and the blond boy make a nice blond couple.

Blonde is a noun meaning a fair-haired female.

• The blonde has nice shoes.

Blonde is also an adjective used to describe a female (or females) with fair hair.

• The blonde girl and the blond boy make a nice blond couple.

(Issue 3) Using gender-neutral pronouns

for people who do not identify themselves as either male or female.

Be aware that some people identify themselves as both male and female while others as neither male nor female. These people might ask you to use they (and of

course their, them, theirs, themself) or just their name instead of a pronoun (e.g., Sarah, Sarah’s, Sarah’s self) when talking about them.

You might also have noticed other gender-neutral pronouns appearing. Ey, per, sie, ve, and zie are all recently proposed alternatives to he or she, but at present none is showing any signs of entering into common usage.

There are three ways of forming the feminine form of nouns:

Masculine	Feminine
Horse	Mare
Husband	Wife
King	Queen
Man	Woman

By a Change of Word

B.By Adding –ess to the Masculine

Masculine	Feminine
Author	Authoress
Count	Countess
Heir	Heiress
Host	Hostess
Poet	Poetess

The following feminine is formed by adding –ess to masculine, after omitting the vowel or the last syllable of the masculine:-

Masculine	Feminine
Prince	Princess
Tiger	Tigress
Waiter	Waitress
Hunter	Huntress

By Changing a Word Before or After the major Noun