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Gender neutral ships now!

(78 Posts)
Urmstongran Wed 24-Apr-19 13:52:22

Who exactly is this supposed to appease? I can't think of anyone, male or female who would be that offended by how an INANIMATE SHIP is referred to!

It's an historical tradition for crying out loud.

Rufus2 Thu 25-Apr-19 12:12:25

My mode of transport is Male ?

Good News Annie; Glad to see you and Fred are now an item and going out together. wink Freda and me are going out daily and receiving good wishes from "long-lost" neighbours.

Btw. did you like my suggestion of "Freddiebach?

Grandad1943 Thu 25-Apr-19 12:15:14

Regarding posts in this thread that refer to the title of "Chairman", I find that in these times that title has been replaced by the title of " Chairperson."

The above title is now very widely used throughout nearly all organisations I find these days, and one I feel is very much a appropriate to the position held.

Anniebach Thu 25-Apr-19 12:42:40

Rufas sorry I didn’t see your suggestion of Freddiebach,
Not suitable for my Fred he isn’t little ?

Freda ? Is she from the same family as my Fred ?

NannyG123 Thu 25-Apr-19 12:54:27

Some people need to get a life, there more things to worry about than a boats gender. Who cares.

Elegran Thu 25-Apr-19 13:29:54

The boats don't care, certainly. Trouble is, once the fanatic end of the gender-labelling lobby succeed in getting boats re-gendered, they will be cock-a-hoop enough to try to turn the "Huperson caught in persontrap in Personchester" jokes into seriously PC issues. On second thoughts, should that have been chicken-a-hoop?

Rufus2 Thu 25-Apr-19 14:11:18

Some people need to get a life, there more things to worry about than a boats gender. Who cares.

NannyG123; Mail boats, for starters! grin

maryeliza54 Thu 25-Apr-19 14:31:06

I actually couldn’t care less about boats and gender but there is an underpinning and really important issue about gender and language ( and race and language etc). Because the boat issue is neither here nor there it doesn’t mean that there isn’t a serious point to be made about how we use language and how it shapes our perceptions of the world and our places within it.

starbird Thu 25-Apr-19 14:31:57

What will a mother ship become? (eg as with spaceships in science fiction if not reality). It makes sense when you see the way a mother bird collects the babies under her wing in time of danger.
What this so called equality is doing is demoting the role of motherhood - caring, nurturing, the first educator etc instead of giving it the status and respect it deserves (whether carried out by a male or female), and society is all the worse for it.

maryeliza54 Thu 25-Apr-19 14:40:53

<eye roll> the status and value of motherhood depends on whether we call a ship she or not? I rather think it’s a little bit more complicated thsn that - if we valued caring and naturimg more we might pay those in the caring professions more for one thing.

Rufus2 Thu 25-Apr-19 14:54:21

Rufas sorry I didn’t see your suggestion of Freddiebach,
Not suitable for my Fred he isn’t little ?

Annie; I was guessing, without pictures of you and Fred! Not long ago a poster enquired as to whether you had come up with a name for Fred's new shed and of course, I've messed up as usual! My research shows "Mawr" for "big"; There's a coincidence! grin Not sure if they are related, but I'll post a selfie of me and Freda when I've sorted out a glitch with uploading. Good Health and Take Care. as you career around the district!

notanan2 Thu 25-Apr-19 15:43:48

Serious question for the ex pat GNers amongst us, has this nonsense bypassed countries where the languages are more widely gendered like french etc?

notanan2 Thu 25-Apr-19 15:44:29

And how is uber woke Canada reconciling this in french speaking areas?

maryeliza54 Thu 25-Apr-19 16:20:14

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_grammatical_gender

Interesting article here - French Canada gets a brief mention

grandtanteJE65 Thu 25-Apr-19 16:23:30

A sailor once told me that ships are shes, but ferries, and I think mine-sweepers, are referred to as he.

As for the grammatical gender thing, milk is masculine in French, but more logically feminine in Spanish.

Danish has a common and a neuter gender, but you need a dictionary to find out which gender nouns belong to.
"Child" is neuter, as is "animal", while loads of inanimate objects belong to the common gender.

grandtanteJE65 Thu 25-Apr-19 16:24:17

And ships are usually referred to as "it" in Danish, as are cars.

Aepgirl Thu 25-Apr-19 16:53:52

Political correctness has gone mad - to coin a phrase.

maryeliza54 Thu 25-Apr-19 16:57:39

‘Political correctness gone mad’ must be one of the most inane phrases in the English language. It’s utterly meaningless.

Theoddbird Thu 25-Apr-19 17:01:42

Oh gawd....I live on a narrow boat and I will continue to refer to my lovely home as SHE. Who on earth stays up late thinking of these stupid things?

Blodwen1910 Thu 25-Apr-19 17:02:03

Closer to home. In Welsh a ship is feminine and boat is masculine. ( a table is also feminine)

Anniebach Thu 25-Apr-19 17:47:35

Rufas Fred’s new home is Ty Bach, little house

maddyone Thu 25-Apr-19 22:19:39

Ha ha, gender neutral ships. That reminds me of when my daughter was six years old, and seeing a news item on television about a ship, which was referred to as ‘she.’ My daughter turned around and looked at me and said,
‘How do they know it’s a she? Do they turn it upside down and look underneath?’

Grandma70s Fri 26-Apr-19 08:18:28

I always went along with the convention of calling ships ‘she’ until my young son questioned it. He was about six, and said he thought it was stupid since ships were not female.
I decided I agreed with him and I now would refer to boats and ships as ‘it’.

BlueBelle Fri 26-Apr-19 08:45:12

I could never work out how a female cat in French was a male etc etc
Yesterday I went for a walk with my granddaughter and her female dog we had to laugh as some wees she did squatting and for some she cocked her leg we said she was following the trend

grumppa Fri 26-Apr-19 09:46:43

The feminine of the French chat is chstte, which is also a term of affection, as in ma chatte. Better to be a chatte than a bitch.

Lilyflower Fri 26-Apr-19 13:29:24

We are all members of the Church of the Perpetually Offended now.