Thread: Regarding choice of gender...

Originally Posted by Юрка

Учёные говорят, что кофе неизбежно поменяет род (станет средним) благодаря окончанию.

Давно уже
В Минобразе узаконили средний род кофе

Originally Posted by dtrq

Давно уже
В Минобразе узаконили средний род кофе

Сейчас средний род у кофе стал допустимымым, но главным вариантом остался мужской род. А со временем станет наоборот: главным вариантом станет средний род, а мужской станет устаревшим вариантом, а потом совсем уйдёт из употребления.

Originally Posted by Юрка

Сейчас средний род у кофе стал допустимымым, но главным вариантом остался мужской род. А со временем станет наоборот: главным вариантом станет средний род, а мужской станет устаревшим вариантом, а потом совсем уйдёт из употребления.

Я боюсь даже говорить о кофе Кто-нибудь всегда скажет мне, что я не права.

Я тут подумал: оказывается есть слова мужского рода, которые формально очень похожи на слова женского рода. Например: мужчина, сатана, тамада. А также имена (мужские и унисекс): Фома, Юра, Саша, Валера и т.д.
Возможно, это объясняется иностранным происхождением этих слов (мужчина - это кажется польское слово, тамада - грузинское, сатана - из греческого).

As for the Russian language, discussions like "should we use he or she?" is impossible here because of grammatical reasons. Every noun has a grammatical gender, so the answer is always obvious. Кто-то is always masculine and персона or личность are always feminine, and their grammatical gender has absolutely nothing with real gender of a person they refers.

English differs. In Russian, он means "someone/something having masculine grammatical gender", but in English "he" actually means "male person".

I don't care too much of that kind of language discrimination, as "being discriminated by a pronoun" sounds silly enough for me. But referring "person of any gender" as "male person" is just wrong and logically incorrect. So I use "he or she" or "he/she" in such situations.

Originally Posted by RedFox

As for the Russian language, discussions like "should we use he or she?" are impossible here because of grammatical reasons. Every noun has a grammatical gender, so the answer is always obvious. Кто-то is always masculine and персона or личность are always feminine, and their grammatical gender has absolutely nothing to do with the real gender of a person they refer to.

English differs. In Russian, он means "someone/something having masculine grammatical gender", but in English "he" actually means "male person".

I don't care too much for that kind of language discrimination, as "being discriminated by a pronoun" sounds silly to me. But referring to a "person of any gender" as a "male person" is just wrong and logically incorrect. So I use "he or she" or "he/she" in such situations.

Although gender in Russian nouns is usually obvious, there do seem to be a few exceptions such as кофе. Yes, I know, it is a foreign-origin word, but still there seems to be a lot of disagreement over whether this word is он or оно. No one has been able to prove to me that either one is absolutely correct, so I treat кофе as онo and just accept my fate that from time to time I will be corrected by those who insist it is actually a masculine word.

Thank you for your corrections!

Originally Posted by Deborski

Although gender in Russian nouns is usually obvious, there do seem to be a few exceptions such as кофе. Yes, I know, it is a foreign-origin word, but still there seems to be a lot of disagreement over whether this word is он or оно. No one has been able to prove to me that either one is absolutely correct, so I treat кофе as онo and just accept my fate that from time to time I will be corrected by those who insist it is actually a masculine word.

Я приучил себя не обращать внимания на граммар-наци в подобных случаях.

Originally Posted by RedFox

Thank you for your corrections!



Я приучил себя не обращать внимания на граммар-наци в подобных случаях.

Молодец. Так наверное лучше. Можно жить спокойно