Thread: Forgive me - are razors male or female?

Originally Posted by Ockham

It is male: un rasoir; or un coupe-chou... but blade is female: une lame...

I think spontaneously of a she when referring to a straight razor, but not when I am speaking of a Gilette or DE... strange, no?

In German, you can have it 3 ways.

Rasiermesser is the most often used word for a straight razor (shaving knife), and is neuter! (Because knife is neuter, go figger.)
Rasierapparat, for something like a DE (shaving equipment), is male.
As is Elektrorasierer, for electric shaver.

Finally, as in French, Rasierklinge (razor blade for a Rasierapparat) is female.

Originally Posted by Leon

True.

In my native language (Portuguese) and in any other latin-origin languages (Spanish, French, Italian, etc.), all the objects have gender, unlike English.

The dropping of grammatical gender, about a thousand years ago, from English was a great achievement. I call on the speakers of the other Latin-derived languages to belatedly follow suit.

To make them easier for English speakers to learn!