German grammar with the natural gender of what is described. However, since the diminutive forms ending in "-chen" or "-lein" are grammatically neuter, there exist several notable counterexamples such as "das Mädchen" ("girl") and "das Fräulein" ("miss"). Thus these are not illogical, whereas "das Weib" (old, regional or anthropological: woman; a cognate of the English "wife") is really an exception. Furthermore, in German, the gender of nouns without natural gender is not predictable. For example, the three common pieces of cutlery all have different genders: "das Messer" ("knife") is neuter, "die Gabel" ("fork") is feminine, and "der Löffel" ("spoon") is masculine. Students
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