The Noun | English Grammar Class 7 PDF Download

Ways of Changing Gender

By adding ess to the Masculine but without any change in the form of Masculine or By adding ess to the Masculine after dropping the last vowel of the masculine.

Changing of Masculine to Feminine by placing a word before or after a noun we can change its gender.

We can change the gender by using an entirely different word.

Nouns as Common Gender

There are some words which are used as common gender. For example, Infant, baby, child, artist, advocate, advisor, accountant, auditor, broker, businessman, cousin, cook, chairman, criminal, chair person, constable, client, driver, engineer, enemy, fool, guest, judge, librarian, musician, manager, novelist, professor, photographer, bird, fowl, elephant, fish, deer, shopkeeper, teacher, student, lawyer, etc.

Points to be remembered

• The artists, professionals and executives are now frequently written as masculine for both the sexes, e.g. author, poet, writer, doctor, advocate, driver, cook etc.
• Lifeless objects of great strength are often personified as Masculine, e.g. sun, death, anger, time, summer, winter, day, night, thunder, wind.
• Fairy, house-wife, nurse and laundress have no masculine gender.
• Miss is used for an unmarried girl while Mrs. is used for a married woman.
• Mr. is used to address both a married and an unmarried man.
• Though collective nouns such as army, people, nation, flock, class and group are used to signify the collection or group of living things, they are classified as neuter gender.