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French is wild, but it’s actually pretty easy to remember genders for appliances in particular. Generally, the more attractive the appliance, the less questionable its gender. Who could misgender a swamp cooler or a blender?
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Submitted 2 months ago by Stamets@lemmy.world to memes@sopuli.xyz
Comments
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
jballs@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Generally, the more attractive the appliance, the less questionable its gender.
Lol what
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
You trying to tell me that you don’t know your toaster’s safe word?
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 months ago
There is a say in france along the lines that the more bad something is the higher the probability it’s feminin.
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Just switch to German, I know it’s die Geschirrspülmaschine
ninja@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Not knowing any German I can’t tell the difference between this being correct or your putting down “the water sloshing noise machine” with a German accent.
fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Germans: German is such a beautiful language!
German:
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s beautiful in its precision and how it constantly clears your throat
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
That’s a dishwasher, a “washing machine” is for clothes
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s a machine that washes, close enough
tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
That’s right it’s das Kleidungumnassengerät
pedz@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Ok then. What’s the gender of Nutella?
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That wasn’t covered in German class
KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
Clearly it’s dieras Nutella
pumpkinseedoil@mander.xyz 2 months ago
At least in my part of Austria it’s usually „der Geschirrspüler“
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well yeah that’s a different word
Flaqueman@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
What do you thin? It’s conceptually a hole that gets wet!
earphone843@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
What about a dryer?
zero_spelled_with_an_ecks@programming.dev 2 months ago
It’s conceptually Ben Shapiro’s wife.
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Ur mom!
fargeol@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Ethalis@jlai.lu 2 months ago
C’mon, une machine a laver is obviously a girl! Unless you call it a lave-linge instead, in which case it’s a boy.
RedditWanderer@lemmy.world 2 months ago
La laveuse
YoiksAndAway@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Teacher: Time for the French, get your berets on!
aeronmelon@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“Mark, please pass out the baguettes to the class. Only take one!”
samus12345@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Valmond@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Achctually in french they write ah ah ah.
Very disturbing.
yopyop@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It can be both ! You can either call it “un lave-linge” or “une machine à laver”.
Sirius006@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Yeah, it would be nice if people stopped assuming it gender.
theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Un baguette, une baguette, le la.
Il y a un truc qui peut vous servir dans cette situation là.
Dites juste deux baguettes.
C’est un peu plus cher mais en tout cas, il vaut la peine et vous aurez deux baguettes à la fin.
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
A baguette, a baguette, the a.
There is a trick that can help you in this situation.
Just say two baguettes.
It is a little more expensive but in any case, it is worth it and you will have two baguettes at the end.
I don’t think the translator worked that well here, but I think it makes it funner lmao
logi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And if yo get it wrong you’ll be forever banned from blahaj.
hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Can we not bring these stupid, lazy jokes into Lemmy please?
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
mistakes = ok
purposefully using the wrong pronoun = not okis it that difficult? I don’t understand why you’re so upset about a gender diverse instance enforcing their rules 🤷♀️
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
My native language is gendered but I still don’t always know how I’m supposed to talk about male members of a species with a feminine name or vice versa.
TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 2 months ago
i thought gendered languages had two genders for words like “person” so you could make the swap when the gender is known
troglodyte_mignon@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Not always, no. In French, “a person” is “une personne”. It’s a feminine noun — always feminine — and it’s perfectly fine to use it for a man, because what matters here is the gender of the word itself. “An individual” is “un individu” — always masculine, even of the individual in question could be a man. A sentry is “une sentinelle”; it’s a feminine word, even though most sentinels are probably men, considering the gender ratio in the army. This dude is une sentinelle. If you add adjectives, you would use the feminine form so that it matches the word sentinelle: “a sleepy sentry” is “une sentinelle somnolente”.
That said, many (most?) words refering to human beings have feminine and masculine versions. That’s the case for most job names. The baker = le boulanger / la boulangère. The mailman = le facteur, the mailwoman = la factrice. Those words often have an ending that signals the gender (-teur is obviously masculine, -trice the feminine equivalent). Some job names are identical for both genders, but with different articles depending on the gender of the worker you’re talking about: for example the despicable Élisabeth Borne is une ministre, and the spawn-of-hell Bruno Retailleau is un ministre. Words that describe family relationships are mostly gendered too (le cousin / la cousine).
“A wasp” is “une guêpe”. It’s feminine for male as well as for female wasps, although you can add “mâle” or “femelle” if you need to be more specific. “How to recognise a male wasp?” translates as “Comment reconnaître une guêpe mâle ?”, whereas the sentence “Comment reconnaître un guêpe mâle ?” is a blatant grammatical error that no native speaker would make, because the word “guêpe” is of feminine gender, even if the specific wasp you’re talking about happens to be a male.
Some species have different words for male and female specimens. “A sheep” is “un mouton” (masculine). A male sheep would be called “un bélier” (masculine), a female sheep “une brebis” (feminine). If I say “un bélier”, you know that I’m talking about a male sheep, but if I say “un mouton”, you can’t know whether it’s male or female, despite the fact that the word is grammatically masculine. “A cat” is “un chat” (masculine). A female cat is “une chatte” (feminine), but it would be fine to call a female cat “un chat” (masculine) too, because it’s the generic name for the species. In fact, some people make a point of always calling female cats “un chat” because une chatte is also slang for female genitalia.
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Most words that I can think of for various categories of people do have two genders, although in many cases the feminine version sounds very awkward to me, almost like the “trix” suffix in English.
HowAbt2morrow@futurology.today 2 months ago
Doesn’t it depend on if it’s a top load or bottom load model?
letsgo@lemm.ee 2 months ago
These days with everything being LGBTQIAOMGWTFBBQ++++++++, no, not even remotely.
tetris11@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I think power bottom loaders are a thing now
supercriticalcheese@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That’s common in most Latin derived languages
Llufollis@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
A machine in french is feminine. It come from latin machina (μαχανά in Greek) which is feminine (-ina suffix is feminine). Washing is just a verb so it have no influence on the “gender”.
A washing machine -> Une machine à laver
iegod@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Close but wrong. It’s because washing is feminine.
Llufollis@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
All those years of school and lecturing from my teachers only to discover it was all lies… thank anyway I guess.
NahMarcas@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Sadly true, Its like an on pourpouse languaje setting
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 months ago
That nice dirty ass
TriflingToad@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
in my Spanish (HS) class if I don’t know I just guess based off of the vibes
I’ve guessed correctly more often than not
JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I don’t know how German compares to French or Spanish, but in German things can be masculine, feminine, or neutral. What I do—which is partially as a protest, and partially out of laziness—is to assume every non-person noun is neutral.
It works surprisingly well in IT where basically all nouns are neutral, but I probably sound like Kevin from The Office in every other context.
AfricanGrey@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
ITT: Canadians butchering the French language.
w3dd1e@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The word for potato is my favorite. It’s so fancy and English just calls it a potato.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 months ago
SleepyBear@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My highschool french class always loved the word for “squirrel”, “pomegranate”, and of course the ever popular “seal in the shower” combo for extra fun.
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
to be fair, that’s a modern take. in antiquity it was so ignoble it was given the generic name for a fruit/vegetable.
a modern version might be more akin to “dirt thing”
Ashiette@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Potatoes weren’t introduced to europeans in the antiquity
wisely@feddit.org 2 months ago
This is my biggest struggle with German. 3 genders and then plurals, cases etc that can change it again.
Jhex@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Washing Machines are girls for some reason… sme as dryers
GrosPapatouf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In France, “lave-linge” and “machine à laver” are equally common. The first is masculine and the second feminine. For dryers, “sèche-linge” is definitely most common, and is masculine. Of course this might be very different in Quebec or other french-speaking regions.
Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Just to confirm for people who don’t know it’s not the actual physical object that has a gender but the word
madcaesar@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Isn’t machine female? La machine
scutiger@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“La machine à laver,” or “la laveuse”
But not all machines are X machine, some have specific names that could be either gender.
finickydesert@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I think it’s because of gender roles back in the day
Koyaanisqatsi@lemm.ee 2 months ago
This is sponsored by Big Gender to sell us more gender. /j
Spoilt@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Protip : french is misogynist
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 months ago
Je suis enchanté
Où est le bibliothèque?
Voilà mon passport
Ah, Gérard Depardieu
Baguette, hon hon hon
Baguette, hon hon hon (hon hon) hon hon hon!
zephorah@lemm.ee 2 months ago
La Casa vs El hospital. What determines the gender of each? Spelling is great, but this piece boggles the mind.
RVGamer06@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Girl, easy.
IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Me who don’t want to assume someone’s gender: starts speaking Chinese (because “他” is a gender neutral pronoun)
More reasons why Latin based language sucks. We should make Chinese the lingua franca of the world… 😉
PunnyName@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Je ne suis pas Francais
wetsoggybread@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you’re not sure just guess femminine, that seema to be the case more often than not
AeonFelis@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In Hebrew, the word for “stone” is male-sounding while grammatically female, and the word for “rock” is female-sounding while grammatically male, you know, for simplicity.
Corno@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Fake. If that was me, those baguettes would be gone within 0.3 nanoseconds.
hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Reminds me of the time when I forgot if the Latin word for bedroom is -a or -um… (it was cubiculum btw, apparently all rooms are gender neutral)
WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com 2 months ago
Foreign language classes in high school creates gender abolitionists
can@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It’s all a construct!