Genere, n.m.

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-571 Fred revived the alfista thread. 

I am no linguist, but an off-digest correspondent (Jorge Mazlumian) mentioned
"By the way I was watching the Giro d'Italia on RAI TV this am, a famous bike
race.  The speakers referred to the individual guys as "ciclista", not
ciclisto, as in "pianista", "machinista", etc." So I hauled out my shopworn
Cassell's and of course he is right- "pianista" is listed as n.m.f., which the
table of abbreviations says is a "noun employed for both genders", presumably
differentiated by the gender of the article. "Macchinista" and "ciclista" are
both, however, identified as masculine nouns. Would they take different
articles for the two sexes? Hmmm- Skimming up the page from 'ciclista' looking
for another n.m.f. I came on ciarlatore, ciarlatrice (chatterer, bore),
another  'n.m.f.' which skirts the whole o/a problem, and which is what some
would probably call the academicians who prolong this subject unduly.

A couple of people (including Fred) have tied the construction of alfista to
the gender of Alfa. Jorge's examples poke a hole; machine, 'macchina' is
female but the macchinista is male, and the ciclista rides a ciclo, both
masculine.

There are a few languages which academics have tried to purify and
rationalize, purging of contradictions and alien words. Italian, thankfully,
is not at the front of THAT pack; constructions are what they have come to be,
and words mean what the user means them to mean. I will be happy to use
'alfista' (and 'giubo') but I will try not to be rude to an alfisto who refers
to his guibo.

Peace- 

John H.

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