Would a Rose by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet - Maybe Not

Shakespeare asked, What's in a name? Well, more than he may have thought. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but it might not be described that way.

A recent study was done where people were asked to look at a picture of a bridge and asked what three descriptive words came to mind. An interesting patter emerged. People who spoke German as their first language used words to describe the bridge's elegance while people who spoke Spanish as their first language used words to describe the bridge's strength. Apparently accounting for the difference was the German word for bridge is a feminine noun while the the Spanish word for bride is a masculine noun. Similar differences were found with other nouns with different gender assignments.

To confirm the findings the researcher created a fake language that had its own gender assignments for nouns. The results were confirmed. It is unclear what effect these findings will have on English speakers because English does not have masculine or feminine nouns.

More at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=102518565&ft=1&f=1001.