Gender neutral ships now!

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

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.

And in German. The point is that the gender in many languages is a given and therefore not to be argued about

whereas in ancient Latin nouns could be masculine, feminine or neuter - as in my post above a boat (navis) is feminine.

All nouns in French have a gender whether inanimate or not

Well that was my point exactly - eg le bateau, therefore always referred to as ‘il’ he. In English the gender doesn’t exist so has to be assigned when using the pronoun (if we want to assign a gender that is)

Oh I don't know, in French almost all inanimate objects seem to have a gender assigned to them.

In many languages this wouldn’t be an issue would it?

DH's car is definitely male.
I cannot cope with it.

My mode of transport is Male ?

phoenix
did she it tie up to the nearest of the load of old bollards?

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.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of inanimate and male names of RN ships, Blinko, nonetheless they are always referred to in the feminine.
One prosaic explanation is that the gender of the Latin word for “ship” — Navis — is feminine. But people generally agree on the more romantic notion of the ‘ship as a she’ phenomenon: that it stems from the tradition of boat-owners, typically and historically male, naming their vessels after significant women in their lives — wives, sweethearts, mothers. Similarly, and more broadly, ships were once dedicated to goddesses, and later also to mortal women of national or historic significance, thereby bestowing a benevolent feminine spirit on the vessels that would carry seafarers across treacherous oceans. Figureheads on the prows of ships were often depictions of such female namesakes, denoting the name of the ship for a largely illiterate maritime population.

Phoenix

Just a thought, Ark Royal is an inanimate name....

I'll get me coat............

"T'was on the good ship Inanimate.

The one without a fanny mate.

She came into dock, with no sign of a cock,

And the crew did declare, with an icy cold stare "now the PC brigade have made us irate"

Ships never used to have a gender ( introduced 19c I believe) - they certainly never had a sex that’s for sure . It’s nothing like the issue of words like chairman because a woman who’s in the chair does have a sex. I couldn’t care less about ships or cars or any inanimate object but I care about how language reflects biological reality.

Can't see the RN agreeing to that!
Although many of HMS do have male names.

A maritime museum in Scotland Bellanonna after repeated vandalism scratching out on the words ‘she’ from texts on display.

Who on earth has suggested this??

"T'was on the good ship Inanimate...…."!
No! Can't come up with a re-draft! I'm still trying to come to terms with what a Ukrainian comedian's repertoire consisits of; not a Benny Hill, I'm sure!

Well I do not give a flying banana........ my new car is a she and shall remain a she.

These so called gender neutral fanatics are getting on my **!!!!!!!!

NOT wo-men, not NOW wo-men.

Oh, wo is me! Wo is me. Infamy, infamy, they've all got it infamy!

Are we all wo-persons now, now wo-men?