vrghost
New member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2013
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Swedish
- Home Country
- UK
- Current Location
- UK
Was really hoping to get some help here.
In some book, may have been linguistics, may have been a book with just random facts, I remember reading that the U.K. parliament passed a law to simplify the English Language a long time ago. One of the ways to simplify the language was by removing female and neutral definite article, making all nouns masculine. However, the parliament did realise a serious issue ,while boat, woman and anything else can be masculine, the queen can not be, so they made a specific exception that the queen is female. Making this the only female noun in the English language, it makes no difference to he english language or how it is spoken, but it is legally recognised that it is female.
Please note, my memory is not the best at the best of time, and grammar has always been one of my achilles heals.
What I am trying to do is find if there is any truth to this story, or if this is just a case of me not being careful when selecting my sources.
In some book, may have been linguistics, may have been a book with just random facts, I remember reading that the U.K. parliament passed a law to simplify the English Language a long time ago. One of the ways to simplify the language was by removing female and neutral definite article, making all nouns masculine. However, the parliament did realise a serious issue ,while boat, woman and anything else can be masculine, the queen can not be, so they made a specific exception that the queen is female. Making this the only female noun in the English language, it makes no difference to he english language or how it is spoken, but it is legally recognised that it is female.
Please note, my memory is not the best at the best of time, and grammar has always been one of my achilles heals.
What I am trying to do is find if there is any truth to this story, or if this is just a case of me not being careful when selecting my sources.