Boats: he, she or it ?

[ardcarp]

https://www.scotsman.com/news/people/scottish-maritime-museum-forced-by-vandals-to-stop-calling-ships-she-1-4913370

Rear Admiral of the Pink, Lord Sinkham-Quickly, phoned in at the end of R4's Today Programme to complain about those who refuse to call ships 'she'. Well, despite my somewhat ambivalent views about The Establishment, I happen to agree with him. It's a question of historic precedent and tradition. Even our mightiest battleships with names such as Ark Royal, Fearless, Endeavour, etc, etc are referred to as 'she'. Surely any feminist should rejoice in that? And mere leisure boaters would, if choosing a traditional first-name for their tub, would choose Cymbeline and not Cyril, Diana not Dennis....need I go on?

It's interesting that our French friends are always amused by our reference to boats as 'she' because of le bateau. So it's definitely a cultural thing, but surely something to be celebrated?

Oh, one more thing. If people deface signs in a museum it ought maybe to be treated as a criminal act and not rewarded with (for them) a favourable outcome?

[Dave2002]

Tricky. Just because there's a tradition doesn't mean it has to go on for ever.

There's a piece by Debussy which is now not referred to by its name because of the change in attitudes.

[pastoralguy]

Quite agree that a ship should be 'she'! My father was a seaman and he ALWAYS referred to the ships he sailed on as she.

[vinteuil]

It's interesting that our French friends are always amused by our reference to boats as 'she' because of le bateau.

... do your French friends have masculine frégates, goélettes, and chaloupes?.

.

[Alain Maréchal]

... do your French friends have masculine frégates, goélettes, and chaloupes?.

.

...guarded by une sentinelle?

[ardcarp]

... do your French friends have masculine frégates, goélettes, and chaloupes?.

.

It's when we use 'she' to refer to our bateaux de plaisance as they will insist on calling sailing boats. (Bateaux coûteux à entretenir might be a better term.) The point is though, would a French fisherman/woman or merchant seaman/woman use a simple personal pronoun, masculine or feminine, when referring to his/her boat?

[LezLee]

There's a letter about this in today's Guardian:

"I spent 20 years wandering the world on a small boat meeting seafarers of all kinds. In general conversation I hardly ever heard the female pronoun used to describe any sort of vessel (Museum rocks the boat with stand on gender, 27 April). When it was used it was regarded as whimsy, like calling your car a she".
John Newton
Buxton, Derbyshire

[Beresford]

I was always intrigued by shipbuilders always calling their vessel a boat, even when it was the size of an aircraft carrier, but the Royal Navy always referred to it as a ship.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

My boat is called “Pippa & Sam” so I suppose it’s all three.

[Anastasius]

I'm waiting for the PC fascists to campaign to make us engineers stop referring to screw threads as male and female. Or plumbers with their pipe connectors.

[BBMmk2]

Gone far too far, all this rubbish.

[MrGongGong]

Gone far too far, all this rubbish.

[Anastasius]

Gone far too far, all this rubbish.

Ne'er a truer word.

[MrGongGong]

I'm waiting for the PC fascists to campaign to make us engineers stop referring to screw threads as male and female. Or plumbers with their pipe connectors.

"PC fascists" ?

I think you have been reading too many children's comics (or the DM?)

OR

Is it "Microsoft or die"?

[Anastasius]

"PC fascists" ?

I think you have been reading too many children's comics (or the DM?)

OR

Is it "Microsoft or die"?

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.