Thereā€™s definitely some additional nuance (like a pronouns in bio/username situation) but this should cover the broad needs of anyone who is approaching this with good faith.

  • robador51@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    Actually, MƤdchen (meaning ā€œgirlā€ in German) is a diminutive. It comes from Magd (an old word for ā€œmaidā€ or ā€œyoung womanā€) with the -chen suffix, which is a common diminutive in German.

    The -chen suffix makes words grammatically neuter, which is why MƤdchen takes das instead of die, even though it refers to a female person.

    Iā€™m not German but the same applies to the Dutch word for girl, and weā€™ve the same rule for neutral. By the way, ā€˜magdā€™ in Dutch means virgin (maagd to be precise), which sounds incredibly inappropriate to be going around calling someone; little virgin (/ĀÆ ą² _ą² )/ĀÆ

    • stray@pawb.social
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      7 days ago

      Sorry if you already know this, but it sounds from the wording of your post that you might not know that ā€œmaidā€ or ā€œmaidenā€ means virgin also.

      • robador51@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        No need to be sorry. I didnā€™t realise, in Dutch I donā€™t think that connotation stuck for the equivalent, meid. That simply means girl.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        7 days ago

        ā€œmy maiden auntā€ means an aunt who never married (and itā€™s presumed to be virginal because what other option is there /s)

        So yeah