Following on from yesterday's controversial name / weight / beard quasi-synesthesia, I hesitate to reveal the following but reveal it I will:
- Odd numbers are male and even numbers are female. I believe this so strongly that it actually came as a surprise to me that other people didn't. Interestingly, or I find it interesting at least, the only other person recorded to have held this belief is Pythagoras. And he knew even more about maths than I do.
- Also, crotchets are male and minims are female.
I hold these truths to be self-evident.
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But Pythagorus (and the Pythagoreans) also believed in metempsychosis and killed people who let on that the square root of 2 was irrational. They weren't to be trusted.
On the other hand, the teaching of Pythagorean logic and maths to Spartan girls (Sparta was the only Greek polis to believe in the education of girls and even state-mandated it) was high up their educational agenda. Simone de Beauvoir loved Sparta and thought it a feminist utopia because it removed the necessity of childcare from mothers.
So maybe you're an old Pythagorean soul who's metempsychosed and this is the evidence? Have you considered hypnotherapy?
Not just Pythagorus; here is a quote form Jung (Psychology and Alchemy, paragraph 25): "Since olden times, not only in the West but also in China, uneven numbers have been regarded as masculine and even numbers as feminine." Apparently this belief was one of the central axioms of alchemy.
For me numbers have personality but not gender. 2 is cute and friendly, 5 is kind of a jerk, 6 has snobbish tendencies, 9 is a likeable smartass ... Obviously 8 is fat and 7 is thin. In my case it's all visual, it has little/nothing to do with the sound of the word.
Also, you are not crazy, or at least not any crazier than the French, who agree with you:
impair = masculin
paire = feminin
I have to say that numbers are less gender clear for me than cars, letters, colours and places.
S and E are girls of course...
New York is a man.
Paris a lady.
Stockholm is more ambivalent...
I had never thought of numbers as being gender-specific but maybe my sub-conscious thinks differently. I enjoy Sudoku and I make the easier puzzles more challenging by putting in the odd numbers as quickly as possible in order to finish, triumphantly, with an even number. I get very cross with myself if the last numeral to be put in is a 9 or, worse somehow, a 7.
It's a bit alarming to think that every time I do a Sudoku puzzle I am somehow subconsciously perpetuating the battle of the sexes. I prefer to think of myself as just, well, peculiar.
I believe words have positive and negative values. Sprout will always top kumquat for example. Badger and cluster are also "good" words. As for bad, I have a friend who swears "gusset" is pure evil.
Now, I KNOW I'm not alone in this...
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