Was zum Teufel??

I'm always interested in language stories, and here's one from Germany.  German has three words for "the" - der, die and das.  Although nouns which take the der form are classed as masculine, those which take die as feminine and those which take das as neuter this does not necessarily reflect reality - the word for a young girl is neuter for example, whereas the word for a turnip is feminine.  But apparently moves are afoot to decide on one form (die seems to be favourite or maybe a neutral de) and do away with the others.  But of course as we see with our own language, you mess with it at your peril and there will be people who will defend the status quo to their last breath, so we shall see if anything come of it.