When do you refer to a country with "He" or "She"? I don't understand the rule of doing that!

Question

I have seen some people in the news referring to the United States with "She". I am not a native English but I don't understand how to name genderless nouns (such as countries, objects etc) with "He" or "She"! Could you please explain the rule with few examples.

Answer 1

Centuries ago English, like many modern European languages, had grammatical gender. Here's a sample sentence in Old English that illustrates this: "Se deaþ is þisses lifes ende, ac seo sawol is undeadlic." ("Death is the end of life, but the soul is eternal.") In the example, "deaþ" is a masculine noun, and "sawol" is a feminine noun.

Over the centuries, English has lost its grammatical gender, but I wonder if our custom of referring to ships etc. as "she" is a leftover from the time when it had it.

Answer 2

It's just a weird thing people do. I've never heard anyone refer to an object as "he". People always use she to refer to objects if they want to. I don't know that there is any rule behind it, I think it's just the way it is.

Answer 3

It's just something some people do, though I've always heard, and said, "it". "She" is sometimes used for vessels, such as ships, cars, even motorcycles. I've never heard "he" used in such a manner.

Answer 4

With english the general defult pronoun for anything genderless is female.

It makes sence realy when you consider we all start out female.

Answer 5

You refer to things you love in the feminine, of course. You love your country, your boat, and so on, so they are all referred to as "she".

Objects are otherwise normally referred to as "it".

Answer 6

Boats and cars and countries are all feminine. I don't know how to explain it but it is just something that we have always had.

"She is a brave ship"
"look at her go!" refering to a car

Answer 7

You always refer to a country as she or as a femane but never he

Answer 8

I don't understand that either.