And off he sails...

[Derek Warner]

Courtesy of the Sunday Telegraph (Sydney Australia) 25/3/2002

and off he sails -

LONDON : In a break with centuries of cherished tradition, ships are to loose their female status,
the shipping industry's bible "Lloyds List" has announced

Lloyds List was founded in 1734, said the move to update its style was a sad but necessary step
in order to bring the paper in line with modern practices

However a spokesman for Britain's Royal Navy said it would continue the tradition
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

So -

If is sexist to term a ship "she", it must necessarily also be sexist to term a ship "he" - so
where do we go from here?

and off it sails??

No thanks - sounds grammatically incorrect and neuter - I think I would like to continue to think
of PS Decoy as a she - regards Derek

[Randal R Largent]

Here in the States we have a term called 'grandfathering' (which is no
doubt also sexist) that allows continuance of a preexisting situation in
a new era.
My opinion is that most of the paddlers we model fit that catgory to a
tee so I fully intend to be nonconformist and continue to refer to
Transfer as "SHE" and "HER".
Besides. It should be to the femine side of humanity an incredible
compliment that we would apply such a term of endearment to something
that most of them would consider so mundane!
Randy Largent

[ushumgal]

The reason we call(ed) ships 'she' is a hold over from when English
actually had grammatical gender (which is applied more-or-less
arbitrarily - i.e., has nothing to do with actual gender). We are
normally taught that in language, the genders are masculine,
femenine, and neuter. But linguistically speaking, they are really
animate and inanimate, and in some languages there is a modified
version of the animate - femenine. At some point, English began to
label inanimate objects that moved (thus becoming in some way
animate) or used for transportation with the femenine gender. The
same applies to other forms of transportation - in the old "She'll be
comin' 'round the mountain" song, the 'she' is a stagecoach.

So, one could say that it is a linguistic anachronism and thus should
be eliminated. But on the other hand, English is filled with
linguistic anachronisms, so why bother? I personally prefer to use
she - I think it sounds better, and it helps prevent confusion in the
sentence (which can fill up with many 'it's very quickly - for the
same reason, I have no objection to the conventional capitalization
of the word 'God" when referring to the Abrahamic deity.

Jamie

[Derek Warner]

Thanks all that responded with universal comment - keep them as "she" - but the issue is
"syndicated news" if it also appeared in the UK Times - either Packer or Murdock are to
blame (both originally Aussies)

I love watching the early morning and late night news - but that's it - in the evening I only
see & hear what I saw & heard at 6.30 AM - do I really need to know every 1/2 hour if
the Euro or Dm had gained or lost a point on the $US or the little $aussie battler

At 6.30 AM this morning I watched detail an earthquake in nothern Afganastan - same footage
will be re-shown at 11.30 PM tonight - I don't need it

We should all lobby Packer & Murdock for much more air (viewing) time devoted to scale
ships - regards Derek