Why Do Women Have Blonde Hair but Men Have Blond?
The surfer dude has blond hair, but his girlfriend has blonde hair. Why the extra “e” for her? The answer relates to gendered language, in which words are grouped into categories based on gender. In English, we have gender-neutral articles, “the” and “a/an,” but in French, for example, some nouns
are preceded by le, a masculine article (such as le café), and others by the feminine article la (such as la vie). All French nouns are classified as either masculine or feminine. For example, pensée, durée, journée, and matinée (thought, duration, daytime, and morning) are all feminine, so they are...
