Male And Female Nouns

This is taken from a competition in a newspaper, in which it was proposed that English should have male and female nouns. Readers were asked to assign a gender to nouns of their choice and to explain their reasoning.

These were the best submissions and very clever too in our opinion.

SWISS ARMY KNIFE: male, because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

KIDNEYS: female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

TIRE (TYRE): male, because it goes bald and is often over-inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOON: male, because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it. Of course, there’s the hot air part.

SPONGES: female, because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGE: female, because it is always getting hit on.

SHOE: male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

COPIER: female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

ZIPLOC BAGS: male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

SUBWAY: male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

HOURGLASS: female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom

HAMMER: male, because it hasn’t evolved much over the last 5,000 years but it’s handy to have around.

REMOTE CONTROL: female. Ha! You thought it would be male. But consider this. It gives man pleasure, he would be lost without it and while he doesn’t always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

Hope you enjoyed those. I’m sure you can think of more male and female nouns that we could use. If so, please let us know using the Comment box further down the page. We would love to hear from you and to be able to add to the list.

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