Shit, that's worse than if it was their first language! So, let's clarify this he took a class about another language and instead of looking up the difference in English, decided to tell people that they should apply the word's usage the way that other language does? Nope. That's pedantic as fuck. Not to mention if you did that for a class it would be marked wrong, because, well, it is.

There are tons of words that English "borrows" from other languages. Little sentiments that English didn't have that people thought it should. Then instead of inviting a new word, it just uses the most familiar word for that idea. Things like Rendezvous, Uber, or Zeitgeist. We have sentences for those but not stand alone words. At least not popular or interesting ones. Those words that get "borrowed" sometimes lose their meaning or have their meanings change over time. Where they are still pronounced the same way in both places but mean totally different things. Then there are words that are pronounced completely different, spelled completely different, but both came from the same root word and still mean the same thing. English is weird. It has no consistency because of this, you can't rely on another language's usage for words in English.

The correct way to say what they said, if they did pick it up from their first language or some other source, is, "In French, the word's different spellings refer to the gender of the person with that hair color."

Not confidently informing someone of something that is not true in English. I was just clarifying that /u/croana is correct about how those words are used. In English one is a noun and one is an adjective. Everyone can downvote me to 1.5 million for all I care, it won't change the truth of the matter. Sorry, I thought it made sense too, which is why I looked it up.

Also, I am completely aware that I have now become the asshole of this matter. I am comfortable with that.