this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2024
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[–] [email protected] 52 points 2 months ago (2 children)

In spanish "pene" is masculine. However "una pene" (fem) is a much more interesting concept. Even more if we throw in some diminutives. "una penesita"

I actually jokingly call dicks "pussos" with my girlfriend in spanish.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Una pene makes no sense. Also it would technically be penecillo, with a c. However, we do use polla which is akin to dick/cock and is feminine. We also say coño which means vagina and that is masculine

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Cimbrel, carajo, picha, polla, tranca, rabo... Tiene nombres mil el miembro viril! (Yeah idk why we have so many words for penis)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago

It's a language essential! Dick, willy, cock, penis, shaft, manhood, todger, pole, ...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

in portuguese we have something similar. "pênis", "pinto" and "pau" are masculine, but "piroca" is feminine.

why so many words for the same thing? good question! i have no idea!

btw if you want to know what each one means:
pênis: penis
pinto: closest translation in this meaning would be "cock" but the other, more common, meaning is "chick" as in a baby chicken
pau: literally means stick and can be used to refer to a penis. (thankfully there's also "graveto" which means stick but people don't think about a penis when they hear it)
piroca: i don't know if there is any meaning for this word other than dick or penis, and im pretty sure it's some variation of "pinto", made to sound goofier (and it seems it's feminine just because it ends with an A)

[–] Djehngo 25 points 2 months ago (3 children)

So as far as I can tell the rule for deciding if a french word is feminine is "does it end with an e".

There are exceptions and French people claim that's not how it works, but it is an incredibly useful heuristic

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago (5 children)

I feel that 'gender' is probably a misleading term for the languages that have 'grammatical gender', it rarely has anything to do with genitalia. 'Noun class', where adjectives have to decline to agree with the class would fit better in most cases.

English essentially does not have decline adjectives, except for historical outliers like blond/e where no-one much cares if you don't bother, and uses his / hers / its / erc using a very predictable rule. So no 'grammatical gender'.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

in humans the gender can be any, even when the person has specific genitalia. so saying gender is a misleading term because it rarely has to do with genitalia doesn't make much sense to me.

so basically i dont see why not just call it gender when the pronouns given to each word in such languages is gendered

[–] damnedfurry 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The word "gender" was a linguistic thing long before it was ever used to describe people. The latter use case didn't really exist before the 1940s.

If anything, it's the 'people definition' that ought to have to change term names, it's the newcomer, lol.

[–] Bertuccio 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I just want pile onto this yeah

Gender was originally used to describe words.

At some point it was also used as a (probably less common than it is now) synonym for sex.

It was chosen to describe the non-physical concept we now call gender exactly because the original use to describe words doesn't have anything to do with genitalia -- and the intent was that "gender" would refer only to what's between one's ears and "sex" only to what's between one's legs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

The problem is that the noun class that is used to refer to you is based on your gender. As long as that is the case, grammatical gender will probably be the most apt name for the concept.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

English has the peculiarity of having two variants of the same word: "gender" and "genre" with slightly different meanings.

You could lean on it and go with genre. But just changing the word is unlikely to help much, the concept itself is deeply associated with genitalia in English culture, you'd still need to explain it.

[–] Skullgrid 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

‘Noun class’, where adjectives have to decline to agree with the class would fit better in most cases.

great,now explain why the water in spanish fits into a noun class with incorrect "the" and why hands do the same thing, but for the opposite class.

bonus : why are fire and door in different noun classes?

the source of this arrogance : first language had no noun classes , nor indefinite articles.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

umm that's not french btw

[–] Valmond 1 points 2 months ago

It's almost a 50% successrate!

The joke here is bad things are feminine (no science to back that up lol).

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Une pene
Une moustache
Un vagine

⚜️⚧️⚜️

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago

How did you turn in the Duolingo nsfw Mode?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Ella has a penis. A feminine penis.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Naw, I feel it should be neutral...

[–] over_clox 2 points 2 months ago

UNILINGO

QUEERIO