Walter's Famous German Language Essentials Guide

Fri May 6 02:59:45 PDT 2016

On Wednesday, 27 April 2016 at 03:59:04 UTC, Seb wrote:
> On Wednesday, 27 April 2016 at 02:57:47 UTC, Walter Bright 
> wrote:
>> To prepare for a week in Berlin, a few German phrases is all 
>> you'll need to fit in, get around, and have a great time:
>>
>> 1. Ein Bier bitte!
>> 2. Noch ein Bier bitte!
>> 3. Wo ist der WC!
>
> nitpick: Wo ist _das_ WC?
> In German WC we have definite articles and as a WC can be used 
> by both sexes, it is neutral (disclaimer: not a rule).
> However it's more common to say "Wo ist die nächste Toilette?"

Sorry, WC is neutral, but this has nothing to do with usage of 
both sexes. If you want a short explanation of where different 
(linguistic) gender come from, have a look on
http://www.belleslettres.eu/print/genus-gendersprech-v1.pdf 
(German) p. 3
In a nutshell: Connecting gender with sex is wrong. Correlation 
is not causality.

Sorry for being a smartass. I just have to.