GENDER OF NOUNS IN SPANISH VIII NOUNS THAT TAKE THE SAME FORM FOR BOTH GENDER

In the last post, we made reference to nouns in Spanish that are applicable to both genders, but that do not experience changes in the word used to designate one or the other. We use the word "artist" to designate a male or female artist, which does not occur in other cases, in which we have to distinguish, for example, between a "doctor" and a "doctora" depending on whether we are talking about a man or a woman. We had seen that in cases like "artist", the gender of the noun is distinguished through the article and the adjectives referring to it. We will say "el famoso artista", if we talk of a masculine artist who is famous but "la famosa artista" if we talk of a feminine one.

There are other cases in which, although the nouns are also applicable to beings of a different gender, it remains invariable in one case or another, not only the noun itself but also the article and adjectives referred to it. These are called "sustantivos epicenos".

Let's see some examples:

"¿Quién fue Madame Du Barry?, el personaje que interpretó Dolores del Rio" (Who was Madame Du Barry?, the character played by Dolores del Rio)

"El desconocido que tumbó a Mohamed Alí y fue la inspiración para el personaje de Rocky" (The stranger who knocked down Mohamed Ali and was the inspiration for the character of Rocky). 

Note that although in the first case the character is a woman and in the second a man, in both the same noun and the same article are used. In this case, the noun assumes the masculine gender, which is expressed in the use of the masculine article "el". We are, then, before a "sustantivos masculino epiceno". Other nouns of the same type are: vástago (stem), tiburón (shark), lince (lynx), pingüino (penguin), rinoceronte (rhinoceros).

In the case of animals, the adjectives "macho" (male) and "hembra" (female) are frequently used to specify the sex of the animals.

Reapareció Katharine, el tiburón blanco hembra con miles de seguidores en Twitter (Katharine, the female white shark with thousands of followers on Twitter, reappeared).

Note that in the example both the article (el) and the adjective (blnco) remain in their masculine form even though the animal being talked about is a female, which is indicated by the adjective "hembra".

There are also nouns of this type (sustantivos epicenos) that always assume the feminine gender. Some examples are: persona (person), víctima (victim), hormiga (ant), perdiz (partridge), ballena (whale), orca (orca).

Ojo: así están robando los “Motoladrones” en Bucaramanga, esta vez la víctima fue un mensajero (Be careful: this is how the "Motorized Thieves" are stealing in Bucaramanga, this time the victim was a messenger).

Note that in the example, although the person being spoken of is a man (a masculine messenger), the noun ends in "a" (victima) like most feminine nouns, and the article used before it is the feminine "la" (la victima).

Here, too, the designation "macho" and "hembra" is applied to clarify the sex of the animals.