Boats: he, she or it ?

[kernelbogey]

When I corrected my builder for referring to my male cat as 'she', he replied nonchalantly 'Oh, cats are always "she"'.

[vinteuil]

When I corrected my builder for referring to my male cat as 'she', he replied nonchalantly 'Oh, cats are always "she"'.

... indeed so - just as all dogs are "he".

.

[Richard Tarleton]

In Spanish, small, or open, boats are feminine (barca: embarcación pequeña), and larger vessels, for carrying people, animals or cargo, are masculine (barco:Vehículo flotante destinado al transporte de personas, animales o cosas). Warship: barco de guerra (m).

But my late father who served in all sorts of ships in the RN would have been horrified.....

[kernelbogey]

In Spanish, small, or open, boats are feminine (barca: embarcación pequeña), and larger vessels, for carrying people, animals or cargo, are masculine (barco:Vehículo flotante destinado al transporte de personas, animales o cosas). Warship: barco de guerra (m).

But my late father who served in all sorts of ships in the RN would have been horrified.....

This prompts the possibility of writing the almost-too-unfashionable-to-be-admitted thought that perhaps boats and ships (in less particular days) were deemed feminine on the grounds that they were to be loved and cossetted.....

[french frank]

on the grounds that they were to be loved and cossetted.....

Why, necessarily? It might simply suggest a close relationship between boat and sailor … oh, …

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.

I heard differently from my father who served in the RNVR during the war: naval vessels, however large, were usually boats (in the way that violins are fiddles) for those for whom they were an everyday part of life.

[vinteuil]

.

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/the-equipment/ships

.

"'A boat is what you get into when the ship sinks."



Tho' I understand that submarines are always boats - as are Patrol Boats, Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs), and Motor Gun Boats (MGBs)






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[Padraig]

FWIW - it is normal where I live to refer to boats, cars, tractors and other objects as 'she'.

As for ships, "God bless all who sail in her."

I also remember (vaguely) from The Grapes of Wrath a scene where Tom Joad and friends were waiting hungrily for a rabbit to cook over a spit: 'Jesus! Look at her sizzle!' A catchphrase I often used thereafter.

It's a feminine world!

[french frank]

waiting hungrily for a rabbit to cook over a spit: Jesus! Look at her sizzle!' [ ... ]

It's a feminine world!

[Padraig]

A classic gaffe, f f. Please feel sorry for me.

[french frank]

A classic gaffe, f f. Please feel sorry for me.