cetacean sexism

[Joel S. Berson]

The obvious question:  analogous to the feminine for ships?  But I
suppose the answer will be hard to uncover.

Joel

At 7/5/2010 10:07 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>A viewing of John Huston's vastly underrated film of _Moby Dick_ (1956)
>raises the question of why whales should be generically female.  Even when
>it's pretty sure to be Moby, the lookout cries "There she blows!"
>
>I don't know what they say in Japanese or Norwegian (probably something like
>"I have a sonar contact"), but this familiar English usage seems not to have
>been commented on.
>
>JL
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org