RE: International standards for various forms of profile data

At 02:59 PM 8/30/01 -0700, Carl W. Brown wrote:
>Merle,
>
> >Note to Carl: The *German word* for girls is neuter; *German girls* are,
> >I promise you, 110% female.  If you woke up next to one who was neuter,
> >then I'm guessing you had way too much to drink at Octoberfest !   :-)
>
>I suspect that the reason it is neuter comes from the German father's
>desires, not reality.  ;-}

There's a much simpler reason. Both words are diminutive forms (viz the
"-chen" and "-lein" endings) and all such are neuter. Diminutive forms of
words designating young males were very common about 200 years ago, but
have fallen out of fashion since ;-).

A./