[Ads-l] locomotives as female

[Jonathan Lighter]

Acc. to the NY Times Style Book of 1936, p.88 (for example):

" Ships should be referred to as _she_, not _it_, even if the names are
masculine."

Honi soit indeed.

JL

On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 8:12 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: locomotives as female
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Let this be a lesson to you, Joel. I jotted down that note years ago,
> knowing that my day would come round at last. At the same time, I noted
> that "Pre-19th C. exx. tend strongly to be Scottish."
>
> Now I can't find the cite in OED either. Why not?
>
>
> No matter. No matter.
>
> Bk. III, l. 624ff. [Ed. A. M. M. Duncan, Canongate, 1997, p. 43]:
>
> "And thar schip thai lychtyt sone
> And rowyt syne with all thar mycht,
> And scho that swa wes maid lycht
> Raykyt slydand throu the se."
>
> Bk. XVII, l.399ff:
>
> "[T]hai...
> Ordaynyt a schip with full gret fer
> To cum with all hyr apparail
> Rycht to the wall for till assaill."
>
> Katie Wales, _Personal Pronouns in Present-Day English_ (Cambridge U.P.,
> 1996), p. 153, also observes that "the OED's first example of _she_ in
> co-reference with _ship_ dates from the fourteenth century and Barbour's
> poem 'The Bruce.' used by the narrator."
>
> Somebody at Oxford has some mighty tall 'splainin' to do.
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 2:09 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: locomotives as female
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 12:39 PM, Jonathan Lighter <
> wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
> > >
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Latin "navis" is feminine too; but in that system no one could have
> > thought
> > > much of it.
> > >
> >
> > As has been pointed out, "Honi soit qui mal y pense."
> >
> >
> > --
> > -Wilson
> > -----
> > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint to
> > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > -Mark Twain
> >
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>
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