Why Is A Ship Called "SHE"?

Answer 1

In fact in England they have just decided that it isn't any more, whether sailors etc. will change the custom remains to be seen.
Ships were often named after the owner's wife, and/or the saint or godess the owner wanted to be protected by.
Also, a true seaman is in love with the sea and seafaring, so the ship becomes his "lover" so to speak, they feel v. protective toward it etc.
I remember an ancient Celtic saying: "The sea is a woman--beautiful and cruel."

Answer 2

Q: Why is a ship called she?
A: A ship is called a "she" because:

There is always a great deal of bustle around her.
There is usually a gang of men about.
She has waist and stays.
It takes a lot of paint to keep her looking good.
It is not the initial expense that breaks you, it is the upkeep
She can be all decked out.
It takes an experienced man to handle her correctly. :-)
Without a man at the helm, she is uncontrollable. :-D
She shows her topsides, hides her bottom.
When coming into port, always heads for the buoys. :-)

Answer 3

As has been said, ships- being things built for speed, grace and beauty- were known as 'she' (let's face it- us men are the uglier sex...).

Also, there's a sense that 'she' must be cared for (I know, it's sexist, but we're talking hundreds of years ago here) and loved in order to be maintained. There were rarely women on-board, so having an object on which to vent some of the men's affection is both beneficial for the saliors and the ship itself. In short, they looked after their ship a lot more. Sounds a bit silly, I know, but it's true.

Answer 4

In the Chesapeake Bay, many of the workboats were traditionally named for women. The names usually reflected a female family member. No one knows where this tradition originated, but a few speculate that the naming tradition reflects the waterman's connection to his family

Answer 5

I always wondered that too, and never found out why! I always insist on saying IT, because I think a ship is an object, and in English we usually don't assign masculinity or femininity to objects. Maybe it stems from a French influence on our language ?

Answer 6

At one time in English, as in most indo-european languages, nouns had gender (masculine/feminine (and in some languages, neuter). Over the centuries, as English changed from an inflected language to an isolating language, gender was lost. But in certain dialects of English, relict gender was preserved.

As it happens, some of these dialects were found in the West Country of England (Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Cornwall), and this area supplied many sailors to the English fleet, and to the English merchant navy.

In these dialects, "she" for a ship made perfect grammatical sense, and it was transferred from the dialect speakers to speakers of more standard forms of English, and from them to the English speaking world at large.

Answer 7

Because sailors see women and ships as unpredictable and they are never really in complete control.

Answer 8

I don't know for sure but I think it has something to do with when all nouns went by "he" or "she", as they still do in many other languages. the english language has now evolved to simply use "it" for all non gender-specific nouns, but traditions continue with some things I guess.

Answer 9

It's an old nineteenth century thing people stuck to, probably before. Things of beauty, speed, or grace are usually referred to in the feminine gender.

Answer 10

It has to do with the way people in society thought. Men were the main people in charge and if you think about it cars are called "she" also so just explain that?!...