Why ship is known as "SHE"?

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Stan

You have to take care of a boat the same way you have to take care of a woman. You can be married to a woman or married to the sea and you will spend a lot of time and money on both. Hopefully you will get some happiness in return.

Paul in San Diego

A long time ago, captains spent their entire lives on their ships and would consider the relationship to their ships to be similar to a marriage.

You may remember a song in the 1970s called Brandy, which had the following lines in it (this is supposed to be a ship captain speaking to a barmaid named Brandy):

"Brandy, you're fine girl and a good wife you would be.

But, my life, my lover, my lady is the sea."

KidFromThaBay

Im not sure, but it would sound funny if they were known as 'HE'. "May God bless him and all those who sail aboard him'

alisonlbutler

I found this answer, which I think says they are called 'she' because traditionally boats where given female names

The exact reason why boats are called she in English is lost to history. While explanations abound, most appear to be of the folk variety, assumed or invented after the fact as a way to make sense of the phenomenon. Boats are a truly interesting case in English, as they are among the only inanimate objects that take a gendered pronoun, whereas most others are called it. Countries are also called she, as are cars sometimes, but the latter example is almost certainly an extension from boats.

One plausible theory is that boats are called she because they are traditionally given female names, typically the name of an important woman in the life of the boat's owner, such as his mother. It has also been surmised that all ships were once dedicated to goddesses, and later to important mortal women when belief in goddesses waned. Interestingly, although male captains and sailors historically attributed the spirit of a benevolent female figure to their ships, actual women were considered very bad luck at sea.

A second theory as to why boats are called she points to the existence of grammatical gender in most Indo-European languages besides English. While Modern English has hardly any grammatical gender, limited for the most part to cases of natural gender, such as the nouns "woman" and "man" being called she and he respectively, there is evidence that English once has a more extensive system of grammatical gender, similar to that in languages such as German and French. In most Indo-European languages with grammatical gender, the word for "ship" is feminine. In Old English texts, there is more evidence of grammatical gender, such as a shield being called she.

Bell

English law, a few years ago now, passed a ruling that ships were no longer to be referred to as 'she'. Why they were know as that though i don't know sorry.

ideas unlimited

Woman has lots of responsibilities and she has to be taken care well
to sail through her life smoothly, so the ship has to be taken care to reach the shore smoothly. Both have to be taken care by others, they both are called SHE
The ship should sail as carefully as a woman is taken care to sail smoothly in life
Inspite of storms and waves in life, a woman takes care of the family
so the ship should sail smooth inspite of storms and bad weather. , to reach the shore safely with its inmate and contents
A woman has to be protected well by the family head
ship also has to be protected well by the captain
woman has to swim through hardships and so the ship to reach the shore
life is referred as sea
a good ship is a good woman
the captain -the husband

tara

in latin "p" is silent.pronounce she or shi is same.

JOHN B

Can't be trusted.!

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