Masculine and Feminine Nouns for the English Language

THE WASHINGTON POST Style Invitational recently postulated that English should have male and female nouns, like most other languages. Readers were asked to assign a gender noun of their choice, and explain their reasoning. Here are some of the best submissions:

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

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.

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

COPIER – female, because once turned on, it takes a while to warm up. It is also an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but it can also wreak havoc if the wrong buttons are pushed.

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

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

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

WEB PAGE – female, because they are always getting hit on.

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 10,000 years, though it's handy to have one around.

REMOTE CONTROL – female, because it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

Pun Contest Winners

Here are the 10 first place winners in the International Pun Contest.

1. Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons the stewardess looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one carrion per passenger."

2. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. One turns to the other and says "Dam!".

3. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

4. Two hydrogen atoms meet. One says "I've lost my electron." The other says "Are you sure?" The first replies "Yes, I'm positive."

5. Did you hear about the Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal: transcend dental medication.

6. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

7. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan, you've seen Ahmal."

8. Two friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened up a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not. He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So the rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug in town, to persuade" them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed their store saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified, they did so thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

9. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail, and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super callused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

10. And finally, there was the person who told ten different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least one of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in ten did!