Dear all on objects:
Just add some confused clarity:
For nouns, English possesses the rare quality of neutral or indefinite
gender. In Portuguese and in most of the neo Latin languages that is a rare
situation so here it goes:
Objecto (object) is masculine.
Coisa (thing) is feminine.
You never say “objecta” as a feminine noun but you can say it as a verb
form like when someone is “objecting your honour”.
You can say coiso (masculine of coisa), which normally refers to the male’s
sex or to an object that you don’t know the name (that “coiso” between the
carburettor and the sparkplugs).
Designing things, in neo Latin is equivalent to populate the earth with
males and females while in the Saxon world is equivalent to populate the
world with “its” (the word that the Knights of Ni couldn’t hear)
The trouble is even bigger when you notice that gender is not stable among
the neo Latin languages. A tree is masculine in Italy and feminine in
Portugal and Spain. An orange is masculine in Italy and feminine in
Portugal. A car (machina) is feminine in Italy and masculine in Portugal
(carro). While in Portugal streets are flooded with people inside coarse
chaps, in Italy people move inside crazy galls.
Maybe that’s why we never achieve the power of total abstraction. We always
have sex (gender) on our minds.
Best,
Eduardo
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