Subject: cetacean sexism

[Jonathan Lighter]

Amy, you couldn't have learned it here because it looks wrong. OED includes
an ex. from Barbour in 1375. It was/is also applied to vehicles (as in
Wilson's implied "Fill 'er up!").

Pre-19th C. exx. appear to be mainly Scottish, if that means anything.

I'm going to start acronyming "if that means anything" as "ITMA."  Too lazy
to see if it's being done elsewhere.

I've run across various wacky rationalizations (disapproving and otherwise)
for why ships were once expected to be called/ should be called/ must never
be called "she."

A tangential fave:  Richard Howells, *The Myth of the Titanic* (N.Y.: St.
Martin's, 1999), pp.75-76, finds the application of the pronouns *she* and *
her* to ships treacherous and objectionable because, through their use, ships
like the *Titanic *"become a person rather than just a mechanical
object....It follows, then, that when the *Titanic* is damaged in collision
with the iceberg,  it feels physical pain....[I]n its 'last agony,' one 'saw
her stagger and reel above the waters.' Finally, the ship descends not
simply to the bottom of the sea, but, rather, to its 'grave.'"

I guess Howells finds the usage pernicious because it fools
unsuspecting readers without advanced degrees into thinking that ships are
really alive and we should feel bad when they sink. Thank God I read this in
time.  Also, I've never thought of a ship as "a mechanical object" exactly.
A large, specially designed and engineered seagoing craft for the transport
of people and cargo maybe.

Live and learn!

Dr. Howell "teaches Communications Studies at the University of Leeds,
England."
JL

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Amy West <medievalist at W-STS.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Subject: cetacean sexism
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 7/6/10 12:02 AM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> > Date:    Mon, 5 Jul 2010 22:07:12 -0400
> > From:    Jonathan Lighter<wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject: cetacean sexism
> >
> > 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
>
> Good question!
>
> The OE word, hwael is masculine, so that's not the answer. Is it simply
> extending the ship gender usage? And I just recently learned that that
> usage is comparatively recent (1700s) (did I learn that here?).
>
> --
> ---Amy West
>
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