Right. Pedant time, because this is doing my head in.
Gender is a grammatical term that can describe nouns, pronouns and adjectives in many indo-european languages.

What you all mean in these posts is sex ie male or female.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 11:34, 21 replies)

Dictionary.com tells me...
that one definition of Gender is Sex.
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 11:47, closed)

No.
I mean gender.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 11:47, closed)

eh?
You don’t have a clue how language works do you?
( Ring Of Fire A petty, drooling belming butthurt retard., Wed 6 Jan 2010, 11:57, closed)

According to my dictionary...
gender |ˈjendər|
noun
1 Grammar (in languages such as Latin, Greek, Russian, and German) each of the classes (typically masculine, feminine, common, neuter) of nouns and pronouns distinguished by the different inflections that they have and require in words syntactically associated with them. Grammatical gender is only very loosely associated with natural distinctions of sex.
• the property (in nouns and related words) of belonging to such a class : adjectives usually agree with the noun in gender and number.
2 the state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones) : traditional concepts of gender | [as adj. ] gender roles.
• the members of one or other sex : differences between the genders are encouraged from an early age.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 12:13, closed)

Counter-pedantry
English doesn't have genders in that sense. If you're using English, no-one's going to get confused if you use the word gender in the sense that, erm, everyone whose first language is English understands it to mean.
(StapMyVitals wouldn't mind a bit of that, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 12:16, closed)

Masturbatory pendantry FAIL.

( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 12:18, closed)

Quite right
Gender is a grammatical term that can describe nouns, pronouns and adjectives in many indo-european languages.

Now read the next definition in your dictionary.
( Larry Vest One day at a time, sweet Jesus, FFS., Wed 6 Jan 2010, 12:30, closed)

Maybe it's a school dictionary

( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 13:16, closed)

Uh-oh.
Bet that's soggied your croissant eh?
(TheColonel, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 13:27, closed)

this has made you look like a dickhead
well done.
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 13:38, closed)

Gender is perceived as how you define yourself.
Sex is perceived as how biology defines you.

Would it mess with the OP's definition if it was mentioned that in the 15th Century medical diagrams and the like went to great lengths to prove the female reproductive system was identical but inferior to the male one? I don't know much more but I thought it was interesting.
( Bats, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 14:03, closed)

Am I the only one disappointed
that the O/P hasn't returned to bask in the glory of epic failure?
( whenanimalsattackhumans clad in global hypercolour, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 15:57, closed)

My Missus
Was telling me pretty much the same thing i.e. gender is grammer and sex is technical, as it were.

However, reading your posts/responses. I did wonder, why would it be called gender reassignment? Surely that should be sex reassignment (using the orginal post)?

Query. If it was genderism would that not mean we could discriminate against boats, seen as femine?
(StyX is staring at you, yes YOU!!!, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 17:02, closed)

are you my dad?
This is one of his favourite rants
(MostlySunny, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 18:59, closed)

Last time I checked.
I wasn't your dad, but things might have changed since then.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 20:06, closed)

Thank you b3ta.
You have won and lost a bet for me. I was arguing with a friend earlier about the reasons for the declining standards of written English. I said it was because of the liberalisation of English teaching in the seventies and the abolition of the grammar school system. He said it was because people don't really care about language.

I came up with the idea of this post. The bet was that there would be some discussion of the semantics of the word gender, and that someone would correct the mangled grammar of the first line of my original post. So, I win and lose.

For anyone who's interested, the reason some people say you can't use gender to describe sex is because of it's Latin root genus meaning type or kind, because the type being described would have been masculine, feminine or neuter, and there are only two sexes, a group of linguists argued against the use of gender to describe sex at the turn of the 18th century.

Insert lady-boy joke here.

I think this argument is interesting yet flawed. Gender is an English word, and it's semantics should be based around modern common usage, not a prescriptive set of rules thought up by men in tweeds with too much time on their hands. These are the same people who said you can't split the infinitive, because the infinitive declension in Latin doesn't use a clitic.

English is English, not Latin. It doesn't change the fact that the plural of octopus is octopuses and not octopi, because octopus is a third declension noun in Latin, unlike hippopotamus and cactus which are second declension. I'll fight anyone who says differently.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Wed 6 Jan 2010, 19:54, closed)

octopi/octopuses
I thought if it was a third declension noun then it should be octopodes?
( SteamedCleaner, Thu 7 Jan 2010, 0:21, closed)

You are right.
Octopodes in Latin, but octopus has a regular plural in English. Hippopotamus and cactus don't because they are second declension in Latin. I guess what I'm saying is that you can't apply the reason for the irregular plurals of hippopotamus and cactus to octopus.

Maybe it's time octopus was changed in the OED, as most people would say octopi, but I like it as it is, because I get the chance to discuss declension, and I'm a geek.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Thu 7 Jan 2010, 5:13, closed)

your an education troll?
i thought the reason that people continue to use sex for the physical and gender for the identity is cos they are sometimes different in the same person so it helps to have two separate terms.

also i would say that your mate has lost the bet though that doesn't prove that you are right.
( tickle I was away, Thu 7 Jan 2010, 1:49, closed)

Ooh, it's like Trading Places
but naffer.

By the way, tweed is awesome. And also, the posessive 'its' has no apostrophe, which you've done twice. I bet you don't care about grammar.
(Land of Green Ginger It's dreamy weather, Thu 7 Jan 2010, 9:30, closed)

Hahahahaha NO.
"Acutally it's meant to be like that."

"It was a JOKE. Dur!"

"Actually my mum's dead."

Sorry, but you have failed, and we have every right to take the utter piss out of you for it.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Thu 7 Jan 2010, 10:47, closed)