Subject: cetacean sexism

[Jonathan Lighter]

No "Stupid Wild-Assed Guess"?

That's the interpretation I'm personally familiar with and the one that
doesn't apply in this case.

JL

On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Subject: cetacean sexism
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Umm, without that second sentence ;-) I wouldn't know whether you meant
> that
> as praise or criticism. Wiktionary <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/SWAG>:
>
>   1. speculative wild-ass  guess
>   2. scientific wild-ass guess
>   3. Special Warfare Action Group *[hardly!] *
>
> m a m
>
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 2:44 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Mark, I can see why you call it a WAG rather than a SWAG.  Like most
> decent
> > suggestions about anything, it's unlikely but hardly implausible.
> >
> > Acc. to the possibly correctly informed blog at[
> >
> >
> http://ididnotknowthatyesterday.blogspot.com/2007/01/why-are-boats-and-ships-always-referred.html
> > ]
> > (Jan.19, 2007), "The shipping industry newspaper, Lloyd's List, now
> > officially refers to ships as 'it.' So much for the romance of the open
> > sea."
> >
> > JL
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 1:53 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      Re: Subject: cetacean sexism
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > Here's my WAG. If folks here think it's reasonable, maybe it's not all
> so
> > > wild-ass after all:
> > >
> > > I have long thought, without any evidence (nor do I know how any might
> be
> > > found, if it exists), that sailors' use of the feminine pronoun for the
> > > ship originated at least partly from the pragmatics of discourse. Here
> is
> > a
> > > speech community consisting entirely of males, speaking a language with
> > > three pronoun genders. All the persons present are "he"; all the
> objects
> > > are "it". The only referents for standard "she" are remote, represented
> > only by
> > > reference in occasional discourse, while the most important single
> object
> > > in  their lives, which they depend on for their very lives as well as
> for
> > their
> > > living and everything they own and use, is the ship. There seems to be
> a
> > > valuable economy in having the ship be the default referent for the
> > > feminine pronoun.
> > >
> > > A similar argument could be made for the object of the hunt.
> > >
> > > Mark A. Mandel
> > >
> > > On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Amy West <medievalist at w-sts.com>
> wrote:
> > >
> > > > 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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