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| It depends on the features and characteristics of the object. If it is soft, slender and shapely, possibly also with round protuberances, it will most likely be a "sie". If on the other hand the object sports hard, rugged attributes chances are it will be associated with "er". When both types of features are present in equal proportions or absent altogether linguists settle for the neutral "es". | |
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No, definitely not. Being a native German speaker I cannot tell you the exact rule (for me its just natural), but it depends on the ending of the noun you are referring to.
E.g., das Mädchen is always "es" even though you know "its" female.
In the above example the guy on TV will have referred to the object as something (like "Ausgrabung") and then used the grammatically correct gender ("sie" in this case).