David, thank you for helping me on this post. I knew if anybody, you would be able to as you always seem to have valuable information and wise things to say. >Who, me? I am as ignorant as a stone! I know nothing! Oh, don't play coy and modest such is not the case and you know it. You at least have an understanding of how language is derived and how it works, whereas I cannot seem to grasp these simple ideas. You should accept your understanding and lack of ignorance in this regard no matter how slight it may or may not be. Remember, though he never abdicated his ideals (which is admirable), Socrates did die for his piety. >I would imagine that there are ways of phrasing things which do in >fact distinguish gender, but you would have to do so explicitly. So, >as a (clumsy) example of an possible literal translation from the >Hungarian: "T. Domotor is a famous ethnologist. It has written many >books and papers on Hungarian folklore. Its contributions to the >field of ethnology are outstanding. It is a woman". <snip> >You might want to ask your nagypa how such phrasings are more usually >done. He had a way, I just couldn't remember what he said or half of what he told me; it may have had something to do with context. The only thing I remembered was the non-gender specific pronouns as I found that fascinating. I will ask again and try to remember better (though he is bound to just tease me for this as I can't even get the vowel sounds right. :P But, alas I suppose grandpas are allowed to do that, is that not part of why they have grandchildren; to take delight in such things?) _________________________________________________________________ STOP MORE SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail