FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/linguafranca/gender-assignment-in-french/3790838#transcript

(Zijlstra and à Beckett have been discussing gender in a giraffe context which I'll include as a preamble)

Margaret à Beckett: ……So giraffe, that's a grazing animal and most grazing animals are all masculine because they are limited, they are restricted to a single food source, which is essentially I suppose endangering, so these things have a way of fitting hand in glove really. And so I found 'giraffe' when I looked it...I didn't know that it was feminine, and I felt that it was, I predicted that it was. And then when I looked it up in my set of data, there it was, feminine. And I was thrilled to discover this!

Maria Zijlstra: Things started falling into place.

Margaret à Beckett: Yes, they did, that's exactly right.

Maria Zijlstra: Some of the other ones that use that privative notion then are immature birds, so chicks, ones that lack feathers, the ones that are born...

Margaret à Beckett: Yes, well certainly because they lack feathers, until they grow feathers and thus develop the ability to fly, all of these immature forms of birds are masculine.

Maria Zijlstra: Domestic fowl? So they lack their freedom.

Margaret à Beckett: Yes, so the domestic pigeon, homing pigeons, pigeons kept in some sort of captive form; and we find that other domestic animals such as ferret and guinea pig, cat and dog, are also masculine. So we don't have to think about these things, they are just masculine.

Maria Zijlstra: So then, this system that you have nutted out, that you have kind of wiggled away at and found the features of...

Margaret à Beckett: Perfectly put!

Maria Zijlstra: ...it shows—it must show, mustn't it?—how people apprehended the world?

Margaret à Beckett: If I could perhaps use an example such as the word 'midnight'—minuit—and it used to be feminine and is now masculine. And so I had to explain that, or in my own mind I had to find out why it had changed. And in fact before clocks were invented, the only way we had of telling the time was a sundial, which in Europe depended on whether or not the sun was out. So you often didn't actually know the time. So minuit—'midnight'—actually meant halfway between the daylight disappearing and daylight arising again, a space of time.

So, once clocks started to be invented, or the town crier would go around crying 'midnight and all's well'—which meant midnight actually lasted for quite a long time until he'd got through the entire town—but timepieces became more and more common. So, gradually, people became more and more aware that midnight could actually mean a particular point in time. And at that point it changed to masculine. And so we find these particular points on a continuum, all are masculine. The extent of, or when something means a range along a continuum, we find feminine. So I was able to show that, in fact, the environment in which something is set, or any change in the environment in which something occurs, is likely to lead to a re-examination or reclassification. So I think that it shows the human ability to adapt meanings in ways that are wondrous really.

14 MINUTE AUDIO LINK
https://abcmedia.akamaized.net/rn/podcast/2012/01/lin_20120114.mp3

II Corinthians 5:11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.