The Lemon Fool

I realise there are perhaps more important issues prevailing at the moment........BUT

when we see a dog,,,while out walking or whatever...we invariably refer to it as 'good boy'....boy!!

in the garden we have many robins,,,,,invariably we refer to them as 'Mr robin'....Mr !!!

I dont think its just me (our family) but??? why|??

Could it be a subconcious association?

So "dog" is the male for a canine. If the common description of canine was instead "bitch" then maybe you'd always refer to strange canines as "good girl"

And, although Robin could be a masculine or feminine human name, is it most immediately thought of as male?

I have no real idea - just a suggestion.

Laughton wrote:Could it be a subconcious association?

So "dog" is the male for a canine. If the common description of canine was instead "bitch" then maybe you'd always refer to strange canines as "good girl"

And, although Robin could be a masculine or feminine human name, is it most immediately thought of as male?

I have no real idea - just a suggestion.

I have never heard a robin called Mr Robin.

Dod

Laughton wrote:Could it be a subconcious association?

So "dog" is the male for a canine. If the common description of canine was instead "bitch" then maybe you'd always refer to strange canines as "good girl"

And, although Robin could be a masculine or feminine human name, is it most immediately thought of as male?

I have no real idea - just a suggestion.

Don't be daft.... it's easy to tell that Robin is male...he wears a funny tight costume and runs around with a bloke called Batman shouting "Biff!" and "Bash!"....

monabri wrote:

Laughton wrote:Could it be a subconcious association?

So "dog" is the male for a canine. If the common description of canine was instead "bitch" then maybe you'd always refer to strange canines as "good girl"

And, although Robin could be a masculine or feminine human name, is it most immediately thought of as male?

I have no real idea - just a suggestion.

Don't be daft.... it's easy to tell that Robin is male...he wears a funny tight costume and runs around with a bloke called Batman shouting "Biff!" and "Bash!"....

I saw that show...
... I'm pretty sure he'd identify otherwise these days!?

But really the answer is the lost difference betwixt gender and sex... lost because English is a lazy language not really learnt by those that never got to grips with grammar!
I'm aggrieved a bit because I'm far too young to have been subjected to the crap the Jesuits put me through regards this particular linguistic nuance, but more so because I came top of the f***ING year in it and no-one ever since has given a flying f*** about proper declension and they look at you as if you've got an extra head when you point out "one" is a perfectly good pronoun! Or that we have historically had four genders in the language (male, female, neuter and common)!
They get really upset about it... it's quite queer really

Dod101 wrote:

Laughton wrote:Could it be a subconcious association?

So "dog" is the male for a canine. If the common description of canine was instead "bitch" then maybe you'd always refer to strange canines as "good girl"

And, although Robin could be a masculine or feminine human name, is it most immediately thought of as male?

I have no real idea - just a suggestion.

I have never heard a robin called Mr Robin.

Dod

Lady Robyn would be spelled with a Y surely?

Morning All.

I think the answer goes back to what time the convention for a given noun or noun family started in a given language.

Fundamentally, I understand it mostly likely goes back to perception of male/female or male/female/neuter at that point in time. So, we often say "she's a good ship" (though this is being discouraged these days) - this goes back to a time where one or more goddesses were believed to protect ships and their crew at sea - and the female casting of ship was a manifestation of that.

Then you have odd looking exceptions, like the German for little girl. This is das Mädchen, which is neuter. That is because all diminutive forms (typically by adding "chen" and an earlier umlaut) in German are neuter. My guess though, is that convention itself (all diminuitive forms being neuter) probably also goes back to an earlier interpretation of masculine and feminine, i.e. they don't become "sexual" in context until older. However, it applies equally to things without sex now, e.g. for a basket, der Korb vs das Körbchen.

Regards, Newroad

WHY SEX?

Why not? It does help to pass the time, after all.

BJ

mutantpoodle wrote:I realise there are perhaps more important issues prevailing at the moment........BUT

when we see a dog,,,while out walking or whatever...we invariably refer to it as 'good boy'....boy!!

in the garden we have many robins,,,,,invariably we refer to them as 'Mr robin'....Mr !!!

I dont think its just me (our family) but??? why|??

If you see a Robin Red Breast it is a Mr Robin. If you see a Robin which is all Brown it's the Missus...

Dicky99 wrote:If you see a Robin Red Breast it is a Mr Robin. If you see a Robin which is all Brown it's the Missus...

No it’s not.
https://www.birdspot.co.uk/bird-brain/h ... bins-apart

If you see a robin which is brown, it’s a sparrow!

Gryff

gryffron wrote:

Dicky99 wrote:If you see a Robin Red Breast it is a Mr Robin. If you see a Robin which is all Brown it's the Missus...

No it’s not.
https://www.birdspot.co.uk/bird-brain/h ... bins-apart

If you see a robin which is brown, it’s a sparrow!

Gryff

Not a Sparrow, a juvenile Robin in fact that it seems I have been misidentifiying as a female all these years.

Dicky99 wrote:

gryffron wrote:If you see a robin which is brown, it’s a sparrow!

Not a Sparrow, a juvenile Robin in fact that it seems I have been misidentifiying as a female all these years.

Indeed. Of course, all of the female robins with any sense of adventure have spent the winter in Spain, where the 24-hour hen parties never stop. Some time around late February, they finally sober up and catch the last flight back to Blighty, where the males have been feeding and fighting themselves into pre-mating form for many months.

Of course, there will be some female robins who've hung around during the British winter. (Which not very many survive, apparently.) Others, I'm told, form all-female groups to get away from pestering males. How very modern.

BJ