What is gender?

Like Indian languages, /aan/-/pen/ (Malayalam) and /ladka/-/ladki/ (Hindi), English also shows gender differences in nouns: /boy/-/girl/.

Genders are of four types in English:

Masculine Gender:

A noun that shows male subtype is known as masculine gender. For example, king, man, boy, father, cock, bull, fox, etc.

Feminine Gender:

A noun that shows female subtype, is known as feminine gender. For example, queen, woman, girl, mother, hen, cow, vixen, etc.

Neuter Gender:

Some nouns are neither male nor female; they fall under the neuter gender. For example: table, hair, city, etc.

Common Gender:

Unlike neuter gender, certain nouns can stand for both males and females. They are called common gender. For example: teacher, student, cousin, parent, etc.

Naming things, otherwise called nouns, are marked for number. For example:

The suffix ‘s’ is a common plural marker in English.

For example,

Rules of Pluralization:

Most nouns take an ‘s’ after the word to form a plural. [bag-bags]
Nouns ending with ch, sh, s, z, and x take ‘es’. [watch-watches]
Nouns ending with ‘f’ and ‘fe’ take ‘ves’. [life-lives]
Nouns ending with a consonant+‘y’ replace ‘y’ with ‘i’+es. [baby-babies]
Nouns ending with a vowel+‘y’ take an ‘s’. [toy-toys]
Nouns ending with vowels take ‘es’. [mango-mangoes]

Some other nouns showing a complete word change or none are given in the box below

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