Sex and gender

[Mr Fortuner connection modem]

About this discussion on the sex of angels and the gender of botanists,

I
looked in a French etymological dictionary (as both sex and gender come from
the French sexe et genre). Genre comes from genus, of course. It refers to a
group of beings having characters in common, as in "le genre humain". It's
also used in grammar for words that are either masculine (le botaniste) or
feminine (la biologie).

Now, sex is more interesting. It comes from the Latin
sexus, but it began its career as a French word in the 12th century spelled
"ses" meaning pleasure, satisfaction.

In other words, use gender if you are
studying French grammar but if you want to have fun, you should use
sex.

Renaud Fortuner