Jeff, whose curiosity about sex gets the better of him, asks:

> In "gendered" languages (French and Spanish I know for sure, not so sure
>  how pervasive it is), nouns have a "gender" such that there is no "the"
>  as in "the bus", it has to be gendered as in "l'autobus" (not "la
>  autobus").  How is gender determined in a noun?  It is an extremely
>  foreign concept in English, with a few exceptions (boats are feminine
>  and often referred to that way directly with "she", "her" and so forth).

There are no hard and fast rules. Nouns that end is "a" are usually feminine,
but not always. Nouns that end in "o" are usually masculine, but not always.
Nouns that end in a consonant, such as "lapiz" or "volcan" in Spanish, can be
either. That's especially true when the word is synthetic, such as "yonke",
which is an attempt at using the English word "junk" in polite Spanish
conversation.

A good portion of the attached gender is simply traditional and learned
through usage.

Wirt Atmar

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