The article analyzes the functioning of the categories of animateness/inanimateness and gender in modern English in terms of the means and forms of their expression. The absence of clear boundaries between classes of words marked with meanings of animateness and/or gender, and variable marking of nouns with these meanings depending on the stylistic or pragmatic purpose of the speaker, as well as on his/her sociocultural characteristics, allow one to conclude that categories of animateness and gender have such properties as interpretativeness and blurriness.