Gender Questions


What's the gender of certain items and objects?

Is a video game console male or female? "The Wii works well, he has never broken down" or "The Shii"?

What about instruments? B.B. King's guitar Lucille is named after a woman he met during a brawl in a bar. Or, as he claims in the acclaimed song (also called Lucille), "the lady that started that brawl was named Lucille". Does that mean that every male musician will see his instrument as something female - and vice versa? Does Candy Dulfer's sax have a male name? Hans, maybe?

What about books? Cars? Furniture?

The only instrument I use daily, is my pencil. But it doesn't have a name. Notice the use of the word "it". I never thought about the gender of my pencil until today. Is it a male or a female pencil? And what would the name be? Scarlett? Josien?

Can this question be compared to finding the perfect name for your offspring? As I said in my previous post, I sure like Egon for a boy. And Aïda for a girl.


All questions, no answers. Sigh.



Julian De Backer, 6 October 2010