A QUESTION IN GRAMMAR.
To the Editor. Si?,. —Would you kindly inform me, through the columns of your paper, ■whether it is proper or not to style the sun “ He ” and the moon “ She,” or does a hard and fast rule apply in grammar assigning the neuter gender to those orbs of light.—lam, &c. , Fraoe. [Under the rules guiding the grammar of the English language there are properly speaking only two genders, masculine and feminine, but a neuter gender is sanctioned by universal usage, and consequently all names of inanimate objects ought to fall under this head. Such objects, however, owing to the process of personification, are often spoken of as animate, conscious, or sentient beings, and, as such, are invested wi:h sex suggested according to anology. Under this rule the sun, considered as, a god, is designated masculine, and the moon, as a goddess, feminine. Therefore no hard and fast rule relative to gender applies. The German and Classic languages, we believe, distribute iuananimate objects over the three genders, but in Italian, French, Spanish, Portugese, and Hebrew no neuter exists.— Ed. G. J
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Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 325, 22 April 1881, Page 2
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184A QUESTION IN GRAMMAR. Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 325, 22 April 1881, Page 2
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