Sometimes the grammar of the Russian language can put the speaker in an awkward position. Along with incorrect pronunciation and stress, the spoken word can also be mistakenly determined by the wrong genus. And this fact does not necessarily indicate illiteracy, everyone can “stumble”. It would seem that what can be difficult here, you need to determine one gender out of three possible: male, female or middle. But difficulties for native speakers, not to mention foreigners, still arise.
Basically we are talking about borrowed words. For example, far from everyone can accurately indicate the gender of the noun “shampoo”, although this is a rather “Russified” word. Let's try to figure out how to correctly determine its genus.
Appearance
The word "shampoo" is English-speaking, but its appearance is due to India in colonial times. There, a head massage product was made from a champo flower to relieve headache or fatigue. Only in the 19th century did the word “shampoo” acquire the meaning “wash your hair”. And at about the same time it came to Russia.
It should be said that the “subordination” of borrowed words to the norms of the Russian language, depending on the language of the donor, can take different periods of time. In the process of development, the distribution of "foreigners" by birth is carried out according to morphological characteristics, and they get their kind based on this. This is where the hitch occurs.
After the appearance in the Russian language of a stable category of the genus, the word “shampoo” did not immediately acquire. The norm was established later, and before that the word was used both in the feminine and masculine gender, which was recorded in official sources. Uncertainty brought patterns of words, both masculine - stump, fire, and feminine - wormwood, shadow. D. N. Ushakov in the explanatory dictionary and defined the gender of the word "shampoo" - both female and male.
How to
Clarity about what kind of noun “shampoo” came only in the fifties. S.I. Ozhegov in his dictionary already gives only one option - the masculine gender. Apparently, grammatical forms were already approved by this time. But most native speakers of the Russian language in colloquial speech continued to give preference to the female gender, which was reflected in some sources. In common parlance, it was somehow led that if a word ends with a soft sign, then it is reckoned as a female.
Interestingly, these days the situation has not changed. In Russian colloquial language has about 150 words with a variation in gender, despite the accepted norms. Thus, in part of the population, shampoo still remains “she's mine”. And if in the XIX and first half of the XX century the expression “odorous shampoo” was quite acceptable, now it speaks of a person’s illiteracy.
In 2009, the word “shampoo” was considered at the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation when an order was prepared on new norms of the Russian language, but, unlike other words, it was left unchanged. Therefore, the one who defines the shampoo as a woman is mistaken.
A little grammar
In order to prevent errors as much as possible or at least reduce them, the following rules should be noted in determining the word’s gender affiliation. In borrowed words, in a significant majority, gender is determined by the generic concept. For example, avenue (street) is feminine, and whiskey (drink) will be masculine.
If we take abbreviations, then the key role in determining the genus will be played by supporting words in decoding. For example, the UN (organization) will be feminine or the EU (union) - masculine.
Words that have a soft sign in the end, mostly feminine - hand, night, mouse, corn. But there are words that relate to the masculine gender, and they just need to be remembered. For example, tulle, swan or salmon. It is impossible to establish a general tendency to determine the kind of such words.
We make phrases
After establishing the gender for the noun “shampoo”, it will not be difficult to compose the correct phrases. Adjectives, participles, and pronouns next to the masculine token are used only in masculine form, respectively. Therefore, the phrases will be as follows: excellent shampoo, your shampoo, donated shampoo, expired shampoo. As for the verbs, it should be done in the same way: the shampoo has ended or spilled, but in no case has “ended” and has not “spilled”.
Mutable word
Shampoo is a word with a variable ending. If you persuade him in cases, then the endings will change. Therefore, what kind of noun “shampoo” is determined by, and its ending will depend on it.
Examples of the correct option:
- unusually expensive shampoo;
- my shampoo is not on sale today;
- we do not trust this shampoo;
- she is satisfied with the shampoo she bought;
- girlfriend heard about German shampoo.
With plural declension, things are even simpler. Even if a person mistakenly defines a shampoo as a female, then in the plural there will be no difference with the correct option. For example, dandruff is eliminated with medical shampoos.