If you’re using the feminine version of the and little, why are we using the masculine version of death? Sincerely, an American who barely speaks French.
The noun death is always la mort (le petite morte as used by the other poster is just wrong). The dead person can be le mort (masculine) or la morte (feminine). The adjective for dead is mort for masculine and morte for feminine, as in l’arbre mort (the dead tree, masc.) or la fleure morte (the dead flower, fem.).
Real, but slightly meta question: who decides the gender of new things? Like, who decided if cellphones, or AI, or computers are male or female? What is the gender of a dildo?
In general, most words follow certain patterns, for example words ending in -ion are always feminine, -age is always masculine, most words that end in a consonant that is not “n” are masculine (la mort evidently doesn’t follow these patterns). For most words using the wrong article sounds unnatural to the trained ear. Most new words are either derived from old words and keep their gender or they are picked up from other languages and adapted to French either by sound or by meaning (only works if there’s already a french word with the same or similar meaning). Sometimes it’s undecided, for example le covid and la covid are both acceptable, personally I think it should be le as it sounds more natural.
Le petite morte is the little death
It’s a euphemism
No, that would be la petite mort.
If you’re using the feminine version of the and little, why are we using the masculine version of death? Sincerely, an American who barely speaks French.
The noun death is always la mort (le petite morte as used by the other poster is just wrong). The dead person can be le mort (masculine) or la morte (feminine). The adjective for dead is mort for masculine and morte for feminine, as in l’arbre mort (the dead tree, masc.) or la fleure morte (the dead flower, fem.).
Real, but slightly meta question: who decides the gender of new things? Like, who decided if cellphones, or AI, or computers are male or female? What is the gender of a dildo?
In general, most words follow certain patterns, for example words ending in -ion are always feminine, -age is always masculine, most words that end in a consonant that is not “n” are masculine (la mort evidently doesn’t follow these patterns). For most words using the wrong article sounds unnatural to the trained ear. Most new words are either derived from old words and keep their gender or they are picked up from other languages and adapted to French either by sound or by meaning (only works if there’s already a french word with the same or similar meaning). Sometimes it’s undecided, for example le covid and la covid are both acceptable, personally I think it should be le as it sounds more natural.