Male or Female

From the Washington Post Style Invitational, in which it was postulated that English has male and female nouns. Readers were asked to assign a gender to nouns of their choice and explain their reasons.

The best submissions:

Detective Novel — female, because you’re not supposed to peek at its end the minute you pick it up.

Swiss Army Knife — male, because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of it’s time just opening bottles.

Kidneys – female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

Penlight – male, because it can be turned on very easily, but isn’t very bright.

Hammer — male, because it hasn’t evolved much over the last 5,000 years but it’s handy to have around and is good for killing spiders.

Tire — male, because it goes bald and often is over-inflated.

Hot air balloon – male, because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it. And, of course, there’s the hot air part.

Web page — female, because it is always getting hit on.

Web page – male, because you have to wait for it to reload.

Shoe — male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

Copier — female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

Magic 8 Ball — male, because it gives monosyllabic answers that usually indicate it did not pay attention to your question.

Ziploc bags — male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

Sponges — female, because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

Critic – female, What, this needs to be explained?

Subway – male, because it uses the same old lines to pick up people.

Hourglass — female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.