SC - OT un chef - male or female?

[Charles McCathieNevile]

In french EVERYTHING has a gender - Masculine or feminine. People are 
simple - men and boys are masculine, women and girls are feminine. But 
all cats, for example, and al dogs, are le chat / le chien - masculine. 
So when I talk about my female cat Isabelle, I say Il est mon caht - "He" 
is my (masculine) cat, without implying anything about the sex of the cat.

In the same way, le chef de cuisine is an office - it means the person 
who is uin charge of the whole deal. The Le refers to the office of chef, 
not the person of the chef. Other examples in French are madame le 
professeur (the teacher) or le medicin (doctor), among many.

Charles

On Fri, 16 Jan 1998, Mordonnade wrote:

> In a message dated 98-01-15 00:52:47 EST, you write:
> 
> << 
>  un chef de cuisine is a french phrase, which says nothing about the 
>  gender of the person who holds that particular office. >>
> 
> Sorry, m'dear, but from what I remember from my high-school French, Un Chef is
> decidedly male
> 
> Mordonna
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