another inanimate "she"

[Jonathan Lighter]

You (of course not you, Larry, "they") mean women can't "boss, play,
control," etc., cars, ships, etc.?  Depends what you mean by "can't" and
even "couldn't."

Even if the theory is historically correct  (and there's no way to
know, always a poor basis for action), there's no evidence at all that the
usage influences anybody's actions today or in the past.

The objection (and it's always stated in the form of an objection rather
than a historical description) seems founded on the unsubstantiated claim
that men are thoroughly obsessed with bossing women, even when they're
thinking of something else entirely.  (I doubt that, but that may just be my
masculine id talking.) And don't overlook the weird sexist assumption that
"men" (or an abstract "patriarchy") alone must be responsible for creating
and keeping alive this and similar usages.

Between inconsequentiality and lack of evidence, proscription of the
usage is nonsense. But as we know, 'til death do they part, nonsense
is often a factor in linguistic perception and change.

JL

On Sat, Jul 17, 2010 at 12:02 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: another inanimate "she"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 3:39 PM +0000 7/17/10, ronbutters at aol.com wrote:
> >trains were referred to as "she" in the 19th century, no? Maybe it
> >makes more sense to see this as one of many nonce instances of
> >personification, and that, in personification femme is the default
> >category.
>
> In our previous thread on this, I alluded to the feminist argument
> that the <+fem> feature is not freely instantiated for all cases of
> personification, but rather in particular for those involving an
> entity controlled, bossed, played, or otherwise manipulated (by
> man)--vessels (and remember what Freud said about those), vehicles,
> musical instruments, political entities, and in this case golf
> courses.  Old man river is not <+fem>, nor is the sun.  (I know, the
> moon is, but there are other metaphorical factors involved there.)
> Forces of nature can be personified either way, depending on other
> factors (Mother Nature vs. Father Time or the Grim Reaper--or, for
> that matter, God and Satan, if we see those as instances of
> personification), but I don't think it's as simple as female is the
> default for personification.
>
> LH
>
> >------Original Message------
> >From: Laurence Horn
> >Sender: ADS-L
> >To: ADS-L
> >ReplyTo: ADS-L
> >Subject: [ADS-L] another inanimate "she"
> >Sent: Jul 17, 2010 10:00 AM
> >
> >Besides ships, cars, and countries, golf courses are apparently
> >female, or at least the links course at St. Andrews, where the
> >British Open is currently being contested.  The coverage has dwelled
> >on the semi-official moniker "The Old Girl" for the course, and there
> >has been talk of "the old girl's defenses" (or defences, in the
> >British press), of how whatever she gives you one day she'll snatch
> >back the next, and so on.  One piece predicted, falsely as it turned
> >out in the light of the windy conditions yesterday, that "the latest
> >equipment has pulled the old girl's teeth".
> >
> >LH
> >
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> >
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