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nouns - What gender is generally associated with "toad" characters in English fiction and folklore?


The common noun for a toad ("жаба") is of female gender in Russian.


Out of all the English literature that I have read, I can remember only one toad-like character: Mr. Toad from The Wind in The Willows, and he is a male.


I wonder, is this an idiom, or a coincidence? When you encounter an anthropomorphic toad character in English fiction, without gender-specific hints in text, should you think that it is a he or a she?


(I know that real-world toads can switch genders from male to female, but I doubt that most of fiction / folklore take that in account.)


Update:


I can't comprehend the third, genderless possibility (I can accept that it may be true, but I can't wrap my mind around it):



If I were presented with a toad character without any hints as to gender, I'd have to suspend judgement.


— (From the comments)



...Can someone think out a query to the Google Ngrams to get a statistics on this? Mr. Toad vs. Mrs. Toad yield zero results both. (Perhaps that is not a good tool then, toads are not that popular.)


In common Google search, Mr. Toad is 489 000 results and Mrs. Toad is 7 590. But that probably does not mean anything, since The Wind in The Willows popularity will affect the search too much.


It is curious that toadess (12 900 results) beats Mrs. Toad...


...Maybe conduct a poll somewhere?


Update 2:


Maybe I've found a way to get statistics.


Search for toad "gender: female" yields 697 000 results, toad "gender: male" — 576 000. (My assumption is that this search should hit forum profiles for users with relevant nicks.)


Without the word "toad": "gender:male" is 18 800 000 results, "gender: female" — 12 000 000. This may indicate that toads are more female than male...


Not sure if it proves anything though...



Answer



The word toad is gender-neuter, like most of the words that refer to animals.


In some cases, there is a word used to refer to a female animal (e.g. cow, which used also for the female of elephant, whale, rhinoceros; heifer; sow; lioness); in some cases, there is a word used to refer the male animal (e.g. drake; bull, which is used also for a male elephant or whale; steer); in other cases, the same word is used for both the female and male animal (e.g. calf; goat; fish).


The same is true in literature. There are no "rules" that say it must be Mr. Toad and not Ms. Toad, nor that Piglet (or Eeyore) in Winnie-the-Pooh must be a he. They are shown as male or female depending on the convenience of the narration.


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