gender

Definition:

A grammatical classification which in English applies primarily to the third-person singular personal pronouns. Unlike many other European languages, English has no masculine and feminine inflections for nouns or determiners. See also:

• Generic Pronoun
• Epicene

Etymology:

From Latin, "race, kind"

Examples and Observations:

• "The 3rd person singular pronouns contrast in gender:
  • The masculine gender pronoun he is used for males--humans or animals that have salient enough characteristics for us to think of them as differentiated (certainly for gorillas, usually for ducks, probably not for rats, certainly not for cockroaches)
  • The feminine gender pronoun she is used for females, and also, by extension, for certain other things conventionally treated in a similar way: political entities (France has recalled her ambassador) and certain personified inanimates, especially ships (May God bless her and all who sail in her.).
  • The neuter pronoun it is used for inanimates, or for male and female animals (especially lower animals and non-cuddly creatures), and sometimes for human infants if the sex is unknown or considered irrelevant. . . .
  "No singular 3rd person pronoun in English is universally accepted as appropriate for referring to a human when you don't want to specify sex. . . . The pronoun most widely used in such cases is they, in a secondary use that is interpreted semantically as singular."
  (Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum, A Student's Introduction to English Grammar. Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006)



• "Under close scrutiny, [the rule mandating singular agreement with indefinites] emerges as a pragmatically cumbersome, linguistically unreliable, and ideologically provocative rule, which entered the canon under false pretenses."
  (Elizabeth S. Sklar, "The Tribunal of Use: Agreement in Indefinite Constructions." College Composition and Communication, December 1988)

Pronunciation: JEN-der

Also Known As: grammatical gender