Date:  Tue, 30 Jan 1996 07:57:17 -0800

From:  Dan Moonhawk Alford <dalford[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]S1.CSUHAYWARD.EDU>

Subject: Re: why are ships referred to as she (fwd)



I have a buddy who's an old salt, and one of my specialties has been

animacy in English pronouns for quite a while, so here goes:



For whatever reason (probably lack of females on board and the sea

herself being called she), ships are indeed SHE -- but only as long as

they are 'in use'; as soon as a military ship is decommissioned, it goes

back to being called 'it'. Therefore the animacy itself has to do with

the animate activity going on, and the 'she' is dependent on a functional

context.



On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Benjamin Barrett wrote:



> >One of our area libraries directed this question to us which we have not

> > been

> >very successful in answering. Apparently a class has been given the

> >assignment of finding out why ships and boats are referred to as SHE.

> >We have looked in all sorts of ship and sea lore books but all we can find

> >is, yes they are referred to as SHE. Any information and sources as to why

> >sailing vessels are spoken of in the female gender would be appreciated.

>

> Nothing but a guess here. I always thought it was because sailors were male

> and they always talked about being married to the sea, etc, etc. I guess it

> could be the other way around, though it seems less likely.

>

> I also have so no particular reason, perhaps, that mother country is the

> reason we refer(red) to countries as she also.

>

> yoroshiku

> Benjamin Barrett

>