Nouns Have Gender; People Have Sex – A Wandering into the Vagaries of Language
[caption id="attachment_3714" align="alignright" width="480"] Word Puzzle[/caption] Language is straight-forward, right? Wrong. In speaking English or any language, much can happen. Usages Changes Some decades ago the word “sex” was used to describe the reproductive function of a human being. Now the word’s use in this way is apparently unacceptable and been replace by “gender”. In my 1979 dictionary, “gender” is defined as “… any set of two or more categories, such as masculine, feminine and neuter into which words are divided…”; “sex is defined as “The property or quality by which organisms are classified according to their reproductive functions”. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came to the Supreme Court and used “sex” in some of her written communications, she was advised by an assistant to use the more polite word, “gender”,…