Query: Why "she" in reference to a ship?

[Wilson Gray]

But Russian has grammatical gender, whereas English doesn't. When
translating from Russian into English, you ignore the fact that "ship"
may be masculine in Russian and use whatever is correct for English.
Hence, Russian "he" will be translated as English "she." It's apples
and oranges.

In Old English, which also had grammatical gender, the word for "ship"
was neuter, as it still is, logically, in contemporary English.
Unfortunately, I know nothing of the history of the convention of
using the feminine pronoun to refer to ships.

-Wilson


On 1/15/06, Dave Hause <dwhause at jobe.net> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Dave Hause <dwhause at JOBE.NET>
> Subject:      Re: Query: Why "she" in reference to a ship?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I don't have an explanation, but note this may be idiosyncratic to any
> particular language - Russian apparently refers to ships as "he".
> Dave Hause, dwhause at jobe.net
> Waynesville, MO
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
> To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 10:32 AM
> Subject: Query: Why "she" in reference to a ship?
>
>
>      One of my students  has asked me why a ship can be referred to as
> "she." Would anyone know?  Have there been any scholarly articles written on
> this subject?
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org