Oh no, they're not!

[SteveD]

Quotation from the latest AnswerBank newsletter Facts and Trivia:

"In French, the words for male genitalia are all feminine......"

[foxy.fagin]

That's neither a question nor a Suggestion, unless I have misunderstood of course.

[jno]

spose it's an invitation to correct an AB error. You francophones want to explain which ones are masculine? En francais s'il vous plait, pas devant les enfants etc.

[foxy.fagin]

Forgot your accent I think, jno. ^^^^^^^^^^^^

[jno]

sorry... eet ees zee eenveetationg to correct zee AhBay erreur....

oh, sorry, not that sort of accent... I can't get them to work on my keyboard, fagin, and I'm too tired to do it all in Word and try to paste it over...

[SteveD]

It's an observation.  Many

[SteveD]

All thumbs again!

It's an observation.  Many of the posts in this category are neither questions nor suggestions.

 

For jno:

Le p*n*s, le t*s*t*i*c*u*l*

However, in slang it's another matter:

La b***, les c******* (fpl)

[VINNY100_2]

No swearing in french please...coz I dont understand it..(:)you merde!!

[jno]

merci le SteveD. Are slang words or diminutives often feminine when the standard word is masculine? (Just curious.)

[SteveD]

jno, I wouldn't know (he said innocently).  If you want to do some research you could start here:

http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/French.html

[jno]

bonjour SteveD... when I asked about diminutives, I was thinking of the whole language, not just the rude bits - I don't speak nearly enough French to have a feel for these things. Just wondered if there was an overall tendency to 'feminise' slang or diminutive words.

[foxy.fagin]

Just eaten and during the meal we were talking about French slang and came up with as many 'feminine' as 'maculine' words but it's true that we couldn't think of anything offhand ('scuse the pun!) for male genitals that was 'masciline' as in 'le'...

[jno]

merci beaucoup fagin

[SteveD]

So, foxy.fagin, your after-dinner conversation centred around male genitalia and French slang words for them!  Sounds like a good subject for a sketch during an after-the-watershed TV comedy programme!

Unfortunately, I fear that, if we continue this thread along its original lines, ABEd will ban the lot of us.

jno, I think that this business of the gender of slang words is fairly arbitrary and diminutives of masculine nouns do not necessarily become feminine although if there is someone on AB with a knowledge of linguistics, maybe they will be able to inform us otherwise.

Camion (m); Camionnette (f)

Gar�on (m); Gar�onnet (m)

Words ending in "ette" or several vowels "look feminine" and usually are.  However, it is "le squelette" and "un incendie".  There are also lots of words which have different meanings depending on whether they are masculine or feminine (le moule, la moule; le voile, la voile etc).

The only rule to which there is no exception is the one that states that there is an exception to every rule.

[jno]

merci again guys... and, er, guyettes... tres interessant