Why do the Russian speakers fight over the word “coffee”?

When the word coffee appeared in the Russian language, it was masculine, and it looked like a masculine noun. It was кофий (coffeey).

Then, it was transformed into a coffee - a more international-looking world, maybe under the influence of the French language (in French, coffee is a boy).

And so here is the thing. In the Russian language, most words ending by -o or -e are neutral gender. And there is a rule - if it’s a foreign word and it doesn’t decline, doesn’t change - it’s automatically defined as a neutral gender word.

So, on the one hand, we have a historical reason. On the other hand, we have a general rule.

But what do the dictionaries say? Since the end of the 70s, they have allowed both forms. But the neutral one is considered more colloquial.

It means as a journalist being on air, I would use masculine gender for coffee. But if I talk to my mom, I can use neutral.

However, for many people, coffee’s gender has become something like a language monument. They don’t want to accept the neutral gender at all although it’s obviously more convenient. Those people think that the people from the neutral gender party are less intelligent and less educated