Yes, reading 47 pages of bad jokes was an excellent
waste use of my time. (Also I stumbled across a user with the same avatar as me here!)
Following Grade E Cat, Here's a comparative with Portuguese genders for the same words:
Bags > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
Knife > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
Kidney > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
Shoe > feminine (slipper is masculine however) (French) x masculine (Portuguese) (but a boot is feminine!)
Copier > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
Tyre > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
Hot air balloon (its own word) > feminine (French) x masculine (Portuguese) (also its own word)
Sponge > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
Page > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
Subway > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
Hourglass > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
Hammer > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
Remote control (its own word) > feminine (French) x masculine (Portuguese)
It's curious because they are both "Latin" languages, but still have so many differences.
(I know this is not exactly on-topic, but it wouldn't make much sense to jump to the language thread in this context. Also, giving genders to objects does seem like a bad joke...)
Want me to make it even more complicated? Introducing German, the strange language where
some objects are gendered, others aren´t:
Bags > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
> feminine (German)Knife > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
x neutral (German)Kidney > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
x feminine (German)Shoe > feminine (slipper is masculine however) (French) x masculine (Portuguese) (but a boot is feminine!)
x boot, slipper and shoe all masculine (German)Copier > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
x masculine (German)Tyre > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
> masculine (German)Hot air balloon (its own word) > feminine (French) x masculine (Portuguese) (also its own word)
> masculin (German)Sponge > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
x masculine (German)Page > feminine (French) > feminine (Portuguese)
> feminine (German)Subway > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
x feminine (German)Hourglass > masculine (French) x feminine (Portuguese)
x modern word feminine, old word neutral (German)Hammer > masculine (French) > masculine (Portuguese)
> masculine (German)Remote control (its own word) > feminine (French) x masculine (Portuguese)
x feminine (German)One would think if some languages had to gender objects in the first place, which is a weird concept indeed, they would at least settle on the
same ones. But I guess that would be too easy...
Sorry for staying off-topic, here, have some terrible jokes from my about sixth-grade-time. They don´t match the quality or standart of Yastreb´s well-thoughtout ones in any way, but apparently of all jokes I heard in my life these were the most memorable:
A snail is on her way with her kids next to a road. She warns her children:
"Don´t run across the street, the bus is comming in an hour!"
Ahem, and now to lower the standart even more:
Why should you not go swimming after 5 pm?
Because that´s when the elephants practice high diving.
continuation: Why are crocodiles flat?
Because they went swimming after 5 pm.
It gets worse:
What is small, green and triangular?
continuation: What is small, black and triangular?
A small, black triangle? Wrong! It´s the shadow of the small, green triangle!
I´ll see myself out...