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Why do some languages use gendered nouns?
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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Case by case scenario. Man vs woman is simplest one. One gives the fuck, the other takes the fuck. Hence why gay men that took it were seen as less than equal to other men. And why men were seen as providers.
Some jobs were only done by men so only a noun for men was associated. Same for women.
Some biological functions were named after astral phenomenons, like menstruation.
Some locations and names were popularized through misunderstandings and mistranslation, like turkey - which has a different country name depending on where you are.
Or the more common ones are things like "Fuck knows", "nowhere's arsehole", "between your mom's legs", "my goat's testicles", "where my cow shits", "the middle between fuck off and kiss my ass" etc.
There is no real rhyme or reason. Each word has its own origin and they can all be very far apart from the intentions of their creators. Nor could those creators know the evolution of their choice in verbalizing some ideas the way they did.
Don't search for unity where there is none.
Can you teach me more of your wonderful folk curses?
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Thank you kindly. Sadly I cannot. Yesterday I was on a trip and happened to pass through one such location, which is why I can talk about it now.
The folk tale was that some Polish cartographers were mapping the area and asked some locals where they were. The locals shrugged and answered in their language a variant of "Fuck knows". The cartographers took it to heart and the official name of that location on their map became a slightly altered variation of that joking reply.
Naturally later on, a copy of that map was used by the government in charge for census and the name remained sealed in stone.
Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU) wrote a piece of fiction along these lines. In The Light Fantastic: