English is the Microsoft of languages.  Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.<p>Part of the insanity of English grammar and spelling is that it&#x27;s a weird polyglot mashup of Old English&#x2F;Frisian, Norse, French, Latin, Greek, and then whatever random bits of a hundred other languages.  This flexibility is also a strength, in comparison to more ossified and standardized languages.  To borrow another software analogy, English is the bazaar.<p>On a completely different front, gendering sexless nouns is just silly, as an English-native speaker.  At least German mostly puts things that don&#x27;t have an actual gender as neuter.