GENDER. Gender or class, in ordinary usage, these are more or less synonyms, and signify a collection of objects united under a point of view that is common and unique to them: it is natural enough to believe that it is in this same sense that the word gender was first introduced into Grammar, and that one only wanted to mark by this word a class of nouns united under a common point of view that is unique to them. The distinction between the sexes seems to have given rise to that of genders taken in this sense, since the masculine gender and the feminine gender were distinguished from each other, and since these are the only members of this distribution in almost all the languages that are in use. To hold vigorously to this consideration, then, only the names of animals should have a gender ; the names of males would be of the masculine gender ; those of females, of the feminine gender : the other nouns either would have no gender relative to sex, or this gender would only have a relationship of exclusion in regards to sex, and thus the term neuter gender would apply to them well enough: it is in fact under this term that the third gender is designated in the languages that allow for three of them.

But we should not imagine that the distinction between the sexes has been the reason behind this distribution of nouns; it has been at most only the model and the rule up to a certain point; the proof of this is discernible. There is in all languages an infinite number of nouns, either masculine or feminine, the objects of which neither have nor can have any sex, such as the nouns for inanimate objects and the abstract nouns that it is so easy and common to multiply: but the religion, customs, and genius of the different peoples who created languages, could have made them perceive in these objects relationships — real or fake, close or distant – to one or the other sex; and that would have sufficed for them to relegate the nouns to one of the two genders .

Thus, the Latins, for example, whose religion was determined before their language, and which admitted gods and goddesses, with the shape, the weaknesses, and the violent passions of the sexes, put in the masculine gender the common and proper names of the winds ( ventus , Auster , Zephyrus , etc.), those of the rivers ( fluvius, Garumna, Tiberis , etc.), the words aer, ignis, sol [ air, fire, earth ], and an infinite number of others, only because their mythology made the gods preside over the handling of these things. It would seem to be for the opposite reason that they relegated to the feminine gender the abstract nouns for the passions, the virtues, the vices, the illnesses, the sciences, etc., because they erected all these objects into so many goddesses, or because they believed them to be under the immediate control of some female divinity.

The Romans, who were laborers from the moment they joined into political society, regarded the earth and its parts as so many mothers who nourished men. This was no doubt the reason by analogy for declaring feminine the names of regions, provinces, islands, cities, etc.

Particular perspectives fixed the genders of an infinite number of other nouns. The names of the wild trees oleaster, pinaster [ olive tree, pine tree ], etc., were regarded as masculine because, resembling men, they remained sterile in a certain way, if they were not mated with some other species of fruit trees. These, by contrast, bear their fruit like mothers; their names had to be feminine. Minerals and monsters are products and produce nothing; the first have no sex at all, the others have them in vain: thence the neuter gender for the nouns metallum, aurum, aes [ metal, gold, copper ], etc., and for the noun monstrum [ monster ], which is in a way the common denomination of the crimes stuprum, furtum, mendacium [ illicit sex, theft, lying ], etc., because effectively one can only envisage them with the horror that that is owed to monsters, and because these are the true monsters in the moral order.

Other peoples who will have seen things from other perspectives will have assigned genders in a completely different way; what will be masculine in one language will be feminine in another: but determined by purely arbitrary considerations, they could only establish for their genders rules subject to a host of exceptions. Some nouns will be gendered based on sex, others according to their endings, a great number purely out of whim, and this last principle of determination is evident enough in the diversity of genders attributed to a single noun in the different epochs of the same language, and often in the same epoch. Alvus [ belly ] in Latin had originally been masculine, and then became feminine; in French, navire [ ship ], which used to be feminine, is today masculine; duché [ duchy ] is still masculine or feminine.

It would thus be a pointless effort in any language whatever to wish to seek or establish rules appropriate to make known the genders of nouns: only usage can give any knowledge of them; and when some of our grammarians have suggested as a means of recognizing genders , the application of the article le or la , to the noun in question, they have not taken into account that one must already know the genders of these nouns in order to apply correctly one or the other of these two articles.

But what it is useful to note about genders , is their true purpose in the art of speaking, their true grammatical function, their real service: because this ought to constitute their nature and fix the definition of them. Now, a simple glance at the parts of speech subject to the influence of genders will teach us how they are used and at the same time the true reason for their institution.

Nouns present to the mind the ideas of objects considered as being or capable of being subject to diverse modifications, but without any determined attention to these modifications. These modifications themselves can be subject to other modifications; and viewed from this perspective, the nouns for them are also like substances.

Adjectives present to the mind the combination of modifications with their subjects: but in determining precisely the modification included in their value, they only indicate the subject in a vague way, which allows them the freedom to adapt themselves to the nouns for all the objects susceptible to the same modification: un grand chapeau [ a large hat ], une grande difficulté [ a great difficulty ], etc. [1]

In order to make perceptible by a determined application the vague relationship between adjectives and nouns, they were given in almost all languages the same accidental forms as the nouns themselves, in order to determine by the agreement of the endings, the correlation between them. Thus adjectives have number and case like nouns, and are, like them, subject to declensions, in the languages that allow for this way of expressing relationships between words. It is in order to render the correlation between nouns and adjectives even more palpable that the concordance of genders was introduced into these languages, in which the adjectives take on different liveries according to the exigency of the conjunctures and the status of the nouns into whose service they are pressed.

Verbs also serve, in their way, to present to the mind the combination of modifications with their subjects; they thereby express with precision this or that modification; similarly, they only express the subject in a vague way that allows them also the freedom to adapt to the nouns for all the objects susceptible to the same modification: Dieu veut, les rois veulent, nous voulons, vous voulez [ God wills, the kings will, we will, you will ], etc. By introducing into languages the use of genders , then, one has been able to clothe the verbs in endings relative to this distinction, in order to remove from their signification the ambiguity of a doubtful application to the subject to which it is related: this is a consequence that the Orientals have felt and applied in their languages, and which the Greeks, the Latins, and we ourselves have only made use of with regard to participles, apparently because they enter into the order of adjectives.

It is thus following observed usage, and following the preceding observations, that we believe that, in relation to nouns, the genders are nothing but different classes into which they are organized fairly arbitrarily, in order to determine the choice of endings of words which have with them a relationship of identity; and in the words which have with them a relationship of identity, the genders are the various endings which they have in speech relative to the class of nouns correlated with them. Thus because it pleased usage in the Latin language, that the noun vir [ man ] be of the masculine gender , that the noun mulier [ woman ] be of the feminine gender , and that the noun carmen [ song ] be of the neuter gender ; it is necessary that the adjective take on the masculine ending with the first, vir pius [ pious man ]; with the second, the feminine ending, mulier pia [ pious woman ]; and with the third, the neuter ending, carmen pium [ pious song ]: pius , pia , pium , this is the same word with three different endings, because it is the same idea related to objects for which the nouns are of three different genders .

It seems to us that this distinction of nouns and adjectives is absolutely necessary to establish well the nature and use of genders ; but doesn’t this necessity prove that nouns and adjectives are two types of words, two really different parts of speech? Abbé Fromant, in his supplement to chapters ii, iii, and iv of Part II of the Grammaire générale , clearly decides against Abbé Girard, that to make the substantive and the adjective two different parts of speech, this is not to posit true principles . [2] This is not the place to justify this system; but we will make the observation to M. Fromant, that M. du Marsais himself, whose doctrine on genders he seems to accept, was forced, like us, to distinguish between the substantive and the adjective, in order to posit true principles , at least in this respect. [3] Someone will not fail to note that the substantive and the adjective being two different types of nouns, it is not surprising that they are distinguished from each other; but that this distinction does not at all prove that they are two different parts of speech.

“Because,” says M. Fromant, “as any adjective used solely to qualify is necessarily joined to its substantive, in order to make with it a single and same subject of the verb, or a single and same regime, whether of the verb or of the preposition: as one cannot conceive that a substance could exist in nature without being clothed in some fashion or property; as the property is that which is conceived in the substance, that which cannot exist without it, that which determines it to be a certain way, that which makes it named as such; a grammarian who is truly a logician sees that the adjective is but the same thing as the substantive; that consequently they can only be the same part of speech; that the noun is a generic word which has under it two sorts of nouns, that is, the substantive and the adjective.”

An attentive logician must see and assert all the consequences of his principles; let us then put to the test the fecundity of the one advanced here. Every verb is necessarily joined to its subject, to form with it only a single and same whole ; it expresses a property that is conceived in the subject, which cannot exist without the subject, which determines the subject to be a certain way, and which makes it named so: a grammarian who is truly a logician must thus see that the verb is but the same thing as the subject . We have seen this, in fact, since the one always accords with the other, and by the same principle on which the concordance between the adjective and the substantive is based, the same principle of identity approved by M. Fromant: the verb and the substantive can thus only constitute the same part of speech . An absurd consequence that reveals either the falsity or the abuse of the principle from which it is deduced; but it is deduced from it by the same steps as that which we oppose to it, to destroy, or at least to counterbalance one with the other; which is now sufficient to justify the position we have taken on genders . We will revisit, in the article Noun, the clarifications necessary for the distinction between nouns and adjectives. Let us return to our subject.

It is up to the particular grammar of each language to make known the endings which good usage gives to adjectives, relative to the genders of the nouns correlated with them; and it is from the constant habit of speaking a language that one must learn the sure knowledge of the genders to which it relates the nouns themselves. The plan that is prescribed to us does not allow us to go into any detail on these two subjects. However, M. du Marsais has made good observations on the genders of adjectives. See Adjective. We will only make a few general remarks on the genders of nouns and pronouns.

Among the different nouns which represent animals or inanimate beings, there are a very great number that are of a determined gender : among the names of animals, some are found that are of the common gender , others that are of the epicene gender : and among the nouns for inanimate beings, some are uncertain , and some others are heterogenic . Voilà, so many terms to explain here in order to facilitate the understanding of the particular grammars in which they are employed.

I. Nouns of a determined gender are those which are definitively and immutably fixed, either to the masculine gender , such as pater [ father ] and oculus [ eye ], or to the feminine, such as soror [ sister ] and mensa [ table ], or to the neuter gender , such as mare [ sea ] and templum [ temple ].

II. With regard to the nouns for men and animals, accuracy and analogy would demand that the real relationship to sex always be characterized either by different words, as in Latin aries [ ram ] and ovis [ sheep ], and in French bélier [ ram ] and brebis [ ewe ]; or by different endings for the same word, as in Latin lupus [ wolf ] and lupa [ she-wolf ], and in Frech, loup [ wolf ] and louve [ she-wolf ]. However, we find in all languages nouns which, with the same ending, express sometimes the male and sometimes the female, and are thus as a consequence sometimes of the masculine gender and sometimes of the feminine gender : these are those which are said to be of the common gender , because these are expressions common to the two sexes and the two genders . Such are in Latin bos [ cow ], sus [ pig ], etc. — we find bos mactatus [ sacrificial cow ] and bos nata [ old cow ], sus immundus [ unclean pig ] and sus pigra [ lazy pig ]; such is in French the noun enfant [ child ], since one says in speaking of a boy, le bel enfant [ the beautiful child ]; and in speaking of a girl, la belle enfant [ the beautiful child ], ma chere enfant [ my dear child ].

We see then that when these nouns are used to designate the male, the correlative adjective takes the masculine ending; and when the female is indicated, the adjective takes the feminine ending: but the precision that it seems was envisioned in the institution of genders , could it not have been even greater, if adjectives had been given an ending relative to the common gender for the occasions when one would have indicated the species without attention to sex, as when one says man is mortal ? It is not a question here exclusively of either the male or the female, both sexes are included here.

III. There are nouns which are invariably of the same gender , and which always retain the same ending, even though they are used to represent individuals of both sexes. This is another type of irregularity, again opposed to the precision which gave birth to the gender distinction; and this irregularity apparently comes from the fact that, the sexual characteristics being little or not at all perceptible in several animals, the gender of these nouns was determined either by sheer caprice or for some reason of convenience. Such are in French the nouns aigle [ eagle ], [4] renard [ fox ], which are always masculine, and the nouns tourterelle [ turtledove ], chauve-souris [ bat ], which are always feminine; turtur [ turtle in Latin] and vespertilio [ bat in Latin] are always masculine. The Grammarians say that these nouns are of the epicene gender , a Greek word composed of the preposition ἐπὶ suprà [ above in Greek and Latin], and of the word κοινὸς, communis [ common in Greek and Latin]: epicene nouns, like the common ones, have in fact invariability of ending, and they have in addition that of gender which is unique for the two sexes.

The common gender and the epicene gender must not be confused. Nouns of the common gender are appropriate for the male and the female without a change of ending; but they are associated either with the masculine gender or the feminine gender , according to the meaning they are given in the circumstances: in the masculine gender they express the male, in the feminine gender the female; and if one wishes to mark the species, they are associated with the masculine, as the more noble of the two genders included in the species. By contrast, nouns of the epicene gender change neither their ending nor their gender , whatever sense is given to their meaning; vulpes [ foxes ] in the feminine signifies both the species, and the male, and the female.

IV: As to the nouns for inanimate objects, we call uncertain those which with the same ending are associated sometimes with one gender , and sometimes with another; dies [ day ] and finis [ end ] are sometimes masculine and sometimes feminine; sal [ salt ] is sometimes masculine and sometimes neuter. Likewise, we have uncertain nouns in our language, such as bronze , garde [ guard ], duché [ duchy ], équivoque [ ambivalence ], etc.

It was not the intention of first usage to spread doubts concerning the gender of these words, when it associated them with different genders ; those which are in fact uncertain today, and which one can freely associate with one gender or another, are only in this situation because the causes that gave rise to this uncertainty are unknown, or because we have lost sight of the incidental ideas that had originally been attached to the choice of gender . Primitive usage introduced nothing into languages that was not useful; and just as there is reason to assume that it did not authorize any words that were exactly synonymous, we can conjecture that none is of an absolutely uncertain gender , or that the origin should be attributed to some misunderstanding.

In Latin, for example, dies had two different senses in the two genders ; in the feminine it signified an indefinite time ; and in the masculine, a definite time, a day . Asconius explains it this way: “ Dies feminino genere , tempus, et ideò diminutivè diecula dicitur breve tempus et mora : dies horarum duodecim generis masculini est, unde hodie dicimus, quasi hoc die .” [5] In fact, the compounds of dies taken in the latter sense, are all masculine, meridies [midday] , sesquidies [ a day and a half ], etc., etc. It is in the first sense that Juvenal said, longa dies igitur quid contulit? [6] That is, longum tempus [ long time ]; and Virgil ( Aeneid , xi), Multa dies, variusque labor mutabilis aevi rettulit in melius. [7] The method of Port-Royal remarks that these differences are often confused, and that may be true. But we will have to observe in the first place, that this confusion is an abuse if the consistent usage of the language does not authorize it; in the second place, that the Poets sometimes sacrifice correctness for the convenience of a certain freedom, which leads bit by bit to a forgetting of the first views that were proposed at the origin; in the third place, that the best writers respect as much as they can these fine distinctions that so properly enrich a language and characterize its genius; lastly, that despite their attention, mistakes sometimes creep in, which with time take on authority, due to the personal merit of those who have made them.

Finis , in the masculine, expresses the extremities, the limits of something extended: redeuntes inde Ligurum extremo fine (Livy, Book XXXIII. ) [8] In the feminine, it designates cessation of being: haec finis Priami fatorum . (Virgil, Aeneid. ii ). [9]

Sal [ salt ] in the neuter is in its proper sense, and in the masculine it is scarcely ever taken except in a figurative sense. We find in Terence’s The Eunuch , qui habet salem qui in te est ; and Donatus makes the following remark about it: sal neutraliter, condimentum ; masculinum, pro sapientia . [10]

In French, bronze in the masculine means a work of art , and in the feminine it represents the material. We say la garde du roi [ the king’s guard ], in speaking of the totality of those who are currently posted to guard his person, and un garde du roi [ a king’s guard ], in speaking of a soldier attached to this particular troop of his household who takes his name from this honorable commission. Duché [ Duchy ]and Comté [ County ] do not have such pronounced or certain differences in the two genders ; but it is plausible that they used to have them, and perhaps in the masculine they represented le [the] title, and in the feminine, la [the] land that was decorated with it.

Who among us can be unaware that the word équivoque [ambiguous] is douteux [uncertain], and who does not know these lines of Despréaux?

These lines of Boileau [Despréaux] bring to mind the memory of a note that can be found in the posthumous editions of his works, in line 91 of the fourth verse on the poetic arts: votre ame et vos moeurs peintes dans vos ouvrages [your soul and your morals painted in your works], etc. etc. [12] This note is very apt for confirming an observation we made above: we note that in all the editions the author had put peints [ painted ] in your works , attributing to morals the masculine gender; and that when this mistake was pointed out to him, he agreed immediately, and was quite surprised that it had for so long escaped the criticism of both his friends and his enemies. This mistake, which had persisted for so many years without being noticed, could still have been so later, and when he would no longer have been in time to correct it; it would then have been possible for the just celebrity of Boileau to impose itself on some young writer who would have copied it, to then be [copied] again by someone else, if he had acquired a certain weight in Literature. And voilà, morals of an uncertain gender , occasioned by a mistake against which there was not at first any objection, because it had not been noticed in time.

V. The last class of nouns that are irregular in gender , is that of the heterogenes . R. R. ἕτερος, other , and γένος, gender . These are in fact those which are of one gender in the singular and another in the plural.

In Latin, the first are masculine in the singular, and neuter in the plural, such as sibilus [ whistle ], tartarus [ hell ]; plural: sibila , tartara . The others, by contrast, neuter in the singular, are masculine in the plural, such as coelum [ heaven ] , elysium [ elysium ]; plural, coeli, elysii .

These, which are feminine in the singular are neuter in the plural: carbasus [ canvas ], supellex [ furniture ]; plural, carbasa , suppellectilia ; these others, neuter in the singular, are feminine in the plural; delicium [ delight ], epulum [ feast ]; plural, deliciae , epulae .

Lastly, a few, masculine in the singular, are masculine and neuter in the plural, which renders them at the same time heterogenes and uncertain : jocus [ joke ], locus [ location ]; plural: joci and joca , loci and loca . A few others, by contrast, neuter in the singular, are neuter and masculine in the plural: fraenum [ reining in ], rastrum [ harrow ]; plural: fraena and fraeni , rastra and rastri .

Balnaeum [ bath ], neuter in the singular, is in the plural neuter and feminine: balnea and balneae .

This sort of irregularity comes from these nouns having had in the past two different endings in the singular, doubtless relative to two genders , and apparently with different ancillary ideas, the memory of which was imperceptibly lost; thus, we still know the difference between the feminine nouns, malus , apple tree, prunus , plum tree; and the neuter nouns malum , apple, prunum , plum; but we have only conjectures about the differences between the words acinus [ grape ] and acinum [ grape ], baculu s [ scepter, staff ] and baculum [ scepter, staff ].

It was natural for pronouns, with a vague meaning and appropriate to replace any other noun, not to be attached to any determinate gender , but to refer to that of the noun they represented in speech; and that is what happened. Ego in Latin, je in French [ I in English], are masculine in the mouth of a man and feminine in that of a woman: ille EGO QUI quondam [ thus , I WHO formerly], etc.; ast EGO QUAE divûm incedo regina [ but , I the queen WHO walks in the open air], etc., je suis certain , je suis certaine [I am certain, I am certain]. Usage has determined some by forms exclusive to a distinct gender: ille , a , ud ; il , elle [ thus, he , she ].

“ Ce [ this ] is often substantive, says M. du Marsais, it is the hoc of the Latins; thus, whatever the grammarians may say, this is of the neuter gender : because one cannot say that it is masculine or that it is feminine.”

This neuter in French! What then are genders ? We believe we have sufficiently established the idea that we gave of them above; and it follows very clearly that the French language having accorded to adjectives only two endings relative to the distinction between the genders, it in fact only allows for two, which are the masculine and the feminine; un bon citoyen , une bonne mere [ a good citizen, a good mother ].

This must thus belong to one of these two genders ; and it is effectively masculine, since we give the masculine ending to adjectives that correlate with this , such as CE que j’avance est CERTAIN [THIS which I put forward is CERTAIN]. What then might be the views of our illustrious author, when he claims that one cannot say of this that it is masculine or that it is feminine? If it is because it is the hoc of the Latins, as he seems to suggest; let us then say that temple is also neuter, like templum , as montagne [ mountain ] is masculine like mons. The influence of the Latin tongue on ours should be the same in all similar cases, or rather it is absolutely null in this one.

We dare to hope that we will be pardoned for this critical observation based on our love of the truth, and for all the others that we might have occasion to make going forward, about the articles of the able grammarian who preceded us; this liberty is necessary for the improvement of this work. Furthermore, it is to render a type of homage to great men to criticize their writings: if the criticism is unfounded, it causes no harm in the eyes of the public who judge it; it serves only to put the truth in the full light of day: if it is solid, it prevents the contagion of the example, which is that much more dangerous when the authors who present it are more worthy and carry more weight; but in either case, it is an assertion of the esteem that one has for them; only mediocre writers can err without consequence.

We would end our article on genders here, if a remark by M. Duclos, on chapter 5 of the second part of the Grammaire générale , did not demand a few more reflections from us. “The institution or the distinction of genders ,” says this illustrious academician, “is a purely arbitrary thing, which has no rational basis at all, which does not seem to have the least advantage, and which has a lot of disadvantages.” [13] It seems to us that this decision could take in certain regards, some modifications.

The genders seem only to have been instituted to render more perceptible the correlation between nouns and adjectives; and while it might be true that the concordance of number and case (in the languages which allow them), would have been sufficient to characterize this relationship clearly, the mind cannot but be satisfied to encounter in the painting of thoughts a brushstroke that gives it more fidelity, which determines it more surely, in a word, which distances uncertainty more infallibly. This accessory was perhaps even more necessary in languages in which the construction is not subject to any mechanical law, and which the Abbé Girard calls transpositive . The correlation between two words often far apart from each other, would sometimes be difficult to perceive without the concordance of genders , which produces there, moreover, for the satisfaction of the ear, a great variety in sounds and in the number [ quantité ] of syllables. See Quantity.

There can thus be some exaggeration in saying that the institution of genders has no rational basis at all, and that it does not seem to have the least advantage; it is based on the intention to produce the same effects which follow from it.

But, one might say, the Greeks and the Latins had three genders ; we only have two, and the English none at all: this is thus a purely arbitrary thing. Agreed. But what ultimate consequence does one draw from this? In the languages that allow cases, one would have to reason in the same way against their institution, it is as arbitrary as that of genders ; the Arabs only have three cases, the Germans have four of them, the Greeks have five of them, the Latins six, and the Armenians as many as ten, whereas the modern languages, in southern Europe, have none at all.

One might perhaps reply that if we do not have any cases at all, we replace their function with that of prepositions ( see Case and Preposition), and word order ( see Construction and Regime), but the same observation could be applied to the function of genders , which the English replace with word order, because it is indispensable to mark the relationship between the adjective and the noun.

The only remaining objection is that of all the means of indicating the relationship between the adjective and the noun, the English way is at least the best; it does not have the encumbrance of any endings: neither genders , nor numbers, nor cases, create artificial obstacles to stop the progress of foreigners who wish to learn this language, or even to lay traps to its nationals, for whom these arbitrary variations are continual opportunities for mistakes. It must be admitted that there is a lot of truth in this remark, and that generally speaking, a language disencumbered from all the inflections which only mark relationships, would be easier to learn than any other which has adopted this approach; but it must also be admitted that languages have not been established to be learned by foreigners, but to be spoken in the nations that use them; that the mistakes of foreigners prove nothing against a language, and that the errors of the natives do so even less, because they are nothing but a consequence of a lack of education, or a lack of attention: finally, to reproach a language for a procedure that is particular to it, is to reproach the nation for its genius, its way of thinking, its manner of conceptualizing the circumstances in which it finds itself involuntarily at the different moments of its history [ sa durée ]; all causes which have an irresistible influence on the language.

Moreover, the vices which appear to belong to the very institution of genders , often come only from a misunderstood use of this institution. “By feminizing our adjectives, we increase again the number of our silent e ’s.” This is simply clumsy. Couldn’t we choose a different character? Couldn’t we recall the endings of certain classes of masculine adjectives, and vary the feminine endings accordingly?

It is true that these precautions, in correcting one vice, would still allow another to subsist; this is the difficulty of recognizing the gender of each noun, because the distribution that has been made is too arbitrary to be retained by reasoning, and is purely a matter of memory. But again this is nothing but clumsiness independent of the intrinsic nature of the institution of genders . All the objects of our thoughts can be reduced to different classes: there are real objects and abstract ones; corporal and spiritual ones; animals, vegetables, and minerals; natural and artificial ones, etc. One has only to distinguish nouns in the same way, and to give to their corollaries endings adapted to these truly rational distinctions; enlightened minds would have easily seized these points of view; and the people would not be encumbered by them because they are the people and for them everything is a matter of memory.

1. Here the adjective changes gender as the noun it modifies differs: because chapeau is gendered masculine, the masculine form grand is used; because difficulté is gendered feminine, the feminine form, grande , is used to modify it. Throughout this article it is important to note that in French e is a feminine ending: grand (masculine); grande (feminine). Since English does not work this way, both words have the same translation: grand and grande both translate as great or large .

2. Abbé Fromant, Réflexions sur les fondements de l’art de parler ; pour servir d’éclaircissements et de supplémént à La Grammaire générale de Port-Royal in Grammaire générale et raisonnée de Port-Royal , 3rd ed. (Paris, 1768). On the title page of this supplement, the original publication date is given as 1749 and Fromant is identified as Canon of the Collegial and Principal of the College of Vernon, as well as a member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts of Rouen. Abbé Gabriel Girard (1677-1748) was a well-known grammarian, author of Synonymes françois (1736), frequently cited in the Encyclopédie .

3. César Chesneau Du Marsais (1676-1756) was a noted grammarian and the main contributor on grammatical topics to volumes 1-6 of the Encyclopédie .

4. However, we say l’aigle romaine [ the Roman eagle ], but then this is not about the animal; it concerns an emblem, and perhaps there is an ellipsis; l’aigle romaine , in place of l’aigle enseigne romaine [the Roman eagle emblem]. –Author’s note. [Here the authors are calling attention to the feminine ending of the adjective romaine . They explain this apparent anomaly by suggesting that here the adjective romaine is modifying an implied feminine noun ( enseigne or emblem); the apparent noun aigle would thus really be an adjective here. —translator note]

5. “ Dies , feminine gender , time ; and diminutive meaning a short time to say brief time and death: dies twelve hours is masculine gender , from which we say today , as it were, this day .” The passage seems to come from Asconius (9 BCE – 76 CE), commentary on Cicero’s first oration against Verres.

6. “What then did length of days confer on him?” Juvenal, Satires, Book 4, Satire X, l. 265. Translation by Lewis Evans (1889).

7. “Time and the changed labor of ages have restored many things.” Virgil, Aeneid, Book XI. Translation here.

8. Livy, History of Rome, Bk. 33, ch. 37: “On their way back along the Ligurian frontier.”

9. Virgil, Aeneid , Bk. 2, l. 554: “This was the end of Priam’s life.” Translation by Tony Kline.

10. Terence, The Eunuch, Act III, scene 1: “Men of wit, like you.” Aelius Donatus (fl. mid-4 ^th c. CE) notes that here “salt” means “wit.” That is, in the neuter gender it means a condiment, whereas in the masculine it means wisdom or wit.

11. Nicolas Boileau Despréaux (1636-1711), Œuvres, new ed., (Amsterdam, 1729), vol. 1, Satire XII, “Sur l’Equivoque.”

12. Boileau, Oeuvres (Paris, 1747), 2:155.

13. Charles Pinot Duclos (1704-1772), “Remarques sur la grammaire,” in Œuvres (Paris, 1821), 1 :401.