October 25, 2000
K. David

Its an amazing truth. Coca-Cola is a girl. Well... you know, I wasn't raised like a veal, so I'm aware that there are distinct and radical differences between the sexes, but I must say the ability to distinguish the gender of an aluminum can is beyond me. As you may well know, those of you who have studied a foreign language, all nouns have a gender. For example in Italian, words ending in 'o' are male and words ending in 'a' are female; words ending in 'e' are undecided like Ru Paul. And so, Coca-Cola, or in Italian "UNA Coca-Cola" as she is appropriately addressed, is a girl.

In the English language, there is no such ability to discriminate between the gender of the noun and, as a result, Americans are forced to make assumptions about their nouns. Perhaps some major educational institution in this country should take it upon themselves to make some concessions to the European community and their romance languages, by genderizing our nouns. Its the least we can do; since we're still avoiding the metric system like the plague. I have taken it upon myself, as a gesture of good will, to begin this arduous process. Here are a few words to start:

dog: male

cow: female

garage: male

kitchen: female

socks: male

shoes: female

pizza: male

chocolate: female

Albany: male

Philadelphia: female

Ellen DeGeneris: male

Elton John: female

New York Mets: male

New York Yankees: female

Al Gore: male

George Bush: female

Ralph Nader: undecided

Admittedly, this is just the beginning. But I believe that if we all come together, and genderize our nouns, the world will be a richer and more interesting place.