Heard on the Olympics broadcast

Cohen, Gerald Leonard gcohen at MST.EDU
Sun Aug 10 15:31:38 UTC 2008


German does the same: "Sie ist ein guter Mensch" (= She is a good person).  "Ein guter" here are both masculine.
 
Gerald Cohen

________________________________

From: Message from: American Dialect Society on behalf of Wilson Gray, Sat 8/9/2008 1:49 PM



<snip>

Perhaps now is the time to project the campaign outward to such
languages as Russian. I can recall how shocked and disgusted we were
when, at the Army Language School, there were revealed to us such
examples of genderism as the fact that one is not permitted by the
grammar of Russian to say

*Ona (= Feminine) khoroshaia (= Feminine) chelovek "She [is a] nice person"

Rather, one *must* say:

Ona khoroshii (= Masculine) chelovek (= Masculine)

despite the fact that the subject is Feminine! What kind of shit is that?!

-Wilson

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