Gender neutral ships now!

All 3 of my/our boats were femail. The first 2 were already named so there was nothing we could do about that (unlucky)
But the 3rd had no name. We went through every option then a friend said: Wayzegoose. It's a northern term for a printers outing. As we are both from the printing trade it was perfect.

I can categorically state that I will continue to refer to ships as 'she' regardless of what tosh is spouted about gender neutrality !

I did wonder what would happen in France with gender neutrality - any ideas

soda I’m only guessing here but the issues must be different because nouns have pre-existing genders. When we say ‘it’ they say elle or il which, depending on context means she/it or he/it so it’s not the same issue is it? Interesting to think about.

Saw a great comment today, the ship apparently now identifies as a bus. Sums it up really.

Now that made me laugh out loud Pepsi !! ??

pepsi

Gender is a linguistic concept; sex is a biological concept. I really wish the two had never been conflated.

Well, boat and ship are both feminine in Italian, so will always be “she”.

Some senior Naval bod phoned in to the Today programme to say what a load of old codswallop this is, the ships are like a "mother" to their crews, as they (the ships) provide a home for them and protect them while they are at sea.

Yeab but reverence of motherhood and what makes women women threatens some peoples agendas these days..

We soon wont be allowed to say Mother Earth either.

I suppose Alexa should be gender neutral.
However 'it' does have a female sounding voice.

As does the Satnav in the car how I wish it was a Billy Connelly

Give me strength ?

Will I have to start saying that my parent tongue is English?

What a load of old bollocks!

Like cis woman! No no no I am a woman

Bathsheba ?

Male/female electricity connections = hetronormative genital centric cis privilidge connectors

phoenix

hilarious

Bonkers! The world is going mad!

I don't mind gender-neutral but I am not keen on "they" instead of him or her as it's too easy to confuse with the plural meaning of the word. "It" is the gender neutral of him and her and I don't know why people can't be "it"s. Yes I know, it might sound rude, but while we're getting rid of the gender conventions what's wrong with throwing out the conventions pertaining to not calling people "it" ?

Well, I must admit it has always irked me a bit the way ships, boats and cars are referred to as "she". Not that I would go so far as defacing museum property of course!
Inanimate objects do not have a gender in English and I would rather refer to ships etc. as "it" in the same way as I would talk about a chair or a house.

Phoenix - you made me laugh out loud at your little rhyme. Read it to DH he just said 'uh'. No sense of humour, he's a mere male, poor thing.

I'd rather talk about people as "it" too. Why do we constantly have to be reminded about what type of genitals a person has when talking about them? It's irrelevant to most conversation.

"T'was on the good ship Inanimate.
The one without a fanny mate.

C'mon Phoenix! You can do better than that! I came up with that name in a hurry, thinking that someone would improve on it, but not to be!
In keeping with the main objective of "gender neutral" ships, how about " 'T'was on the good ship Eunuch. etc. etc….."? Although you may not know it, you show promise as a poet, and that one should give you greater scope with your rhymes! All we need now is a gender-neutral figure-head! How about foc'sle?

Sorry I'm on the side of people who 'take the chair' or lead meetings, and ships are clearly it, not him or her.