Question

Identify the ‘common gender noun’ used in the following:
The man knew that he is a parent first and then a widower.
a) Man
b) Parent
c) Widower
d) None of the above

Answer 1

Hint: Gender common noun refers to those nouns which can be used for all genders and not specifically for one. An example of the same would be ‘student’; a student can be of any gender.

Complete answer:
The sentence contains three gender nouns, i.e., man, parent, and widower. Widower and man are both gender-specific nouns. Now let us find the ‘common gender noun’ among these options.
Option a “man” is a gender-specific noun and refers to the human male species. For example, “He is the man of the match.” Thus, option ‘a’ is incorrect.
Option c “widower” Is again a gender-specific noun, and refers to a man who has lost his wife to death. For example, “He didn’t come out of his house for months after he became a widower, he refused to remarry too.”Thus option ‘c’ is incorrect too.
Option b “parent” can refer to a mother or a father, and therefore, it is a gender common noun. Parents are the plural of ‘parent’ and refer to both mother and father collectively, but in the singular form, it could refer to either of the two. For example, “Richa didn’t tell her parents about the parent-teacher meeting at school.”Hence, option ‘b’ is the correct answer.
Option d “none of the above” is invalid as we found the answer in the correct answer in the other three options given in the question.

Note:
In the given sentence the noun ‘parent’ refers to a man who is a father, but generally, it can refer to a mother or even a father. For example, ‘There’s a parent-teacher meeting tomorrow.’ Here. a parent could be any of the two, mother or father.