Common everyday implements given a sex.

Phoenyx

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SWISS ARMY KNIFE -- male, because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

KIDNEYS -- female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

TIRE: -- male, because it goes bald and often is over-inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOON: male, because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it ... and, of course, there's the hot air part.

SPONGES -- female, because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGE -- female, because it is always getting hit on.

SHOE -- male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

COPIER -- female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Also because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed and because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

ZIPLOC BAGS -- male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

SUBWAY -- male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

HOURGLASS -- female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMER -- male, because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

REMOTE CONTROL -- female...Ha!...you thought I'd say male. But consider, it gives man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying
 
Thanks, Pheonyx

Those made me think about the Romance languages like French and Italian that have special endings to designate the gender of nouns. When I studied latin in high school, I initially thought the idea of giving nouns a gender was cool, but it quickly became annoyed with it because the genders given to certain words were counterintuitive.

Some words that seemed obviously masculine had feminine endings and visa versa. This by itself was only mildly irritating, but then when I realized the whole idea of giving nouns gender is superfluous for communication I got really frustrated. Why would a whole family of languages insist on two sets of word endings to designate gender when it doesn't add anything to communication?

I still don't know, but languages weren't designed rationally, but evolved over long periods of time and I'm sure were created by forces I don't understand. English certainly has too many of bizarre idiosyncracies, idioms, and rule exceptions for it to be extremely frustrating to new English speakers. I had a girlfriend from Quebec who couldn't get used to the gender neutrality of English nouns. She'd refer to all sorts of obviously gender-neutral items like balls and spoons as he's and she's. It was cute to listen to and I miss it.

Languages are weird.
 
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