Ok gents, please let me direct you once again to my selected link. I started a thread on the Model Fleet site on there message forum, Modeling history. A gentilman there answered my post and blew me away. His handle is BB62 Ding, he is a vietnam vet who served on board the Battleship USS New Jersey. Ding tells us about why they call all ships Her instead of him. This is a must read for all interested in warships. I have talked with ding several times in the past, always interesting, and I learn somthing from him every time. A real gentilman!
Just click my selected link , then on the Model Fleet message board.

Enjoy,
Garry

Howdy Garry,

I hate when you make me do this!............and I love it just as much. If there's one sure path to the soft side of my heart....it's through a fellow veteran's.

Tread.

How true, how true.....I'm glad you have this site to share things like this. Thanks for your time.

The Germans had to be different---in all but a few cases, they refer to their ships with the masculine pronoun "der," or he. The same thing goes for the normal "sistership" being brothership.

ANother thing to keep in mind with the German language, unlike English, is that words carry a gender..."der" refers the word be masculine, "die" feminine and "das" is neuter. To say "the ship" in German is "das schiff". What I am curious about is if the Germans named ships "he" because of sexism? Otherwise "er" means "he" and "sie" mean "she". But you are right on with "der" refering to a masculine word BlueBear and it must have been intentional to call a ship "he" since it carries a neutral gender...even battleship or "Schlachtschiff" is a neutral word....I knew all this college level german classes would come in handy for something!

Sean

First to reply to Garry's original post, that message from BB62 Ding is really great. Almost brings tears to your eyes. I have always thought though it was more along the same lines as why hurricanes were originally name only with female names. Kind of both sexist and repectful at the same time.

To Blue Bear and SonOfaVet the only German ship I knew of referred to as "He" was the Bismarck. I thought, based on the Baron's book Bismarck Survivor, that this was just something the Bismarcks captain came up with, based on how powerful the Bismarck was.

Ooooohhhhhhh......the debate swells.........

Why we call she's a "she"
Direct from the NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
http://www.history.navy.mil/trivia/trivia01.htm#anchor253178

" Why is a ship referred to as "she?"
It has always been customary to personify certain inanimate objects and attribute to them characteristics peculiar to living creatures. Thus, things without life are often spoken of as having a sex. Some objects are regarded as masculine. The sun, winter, and death are often personified in this way. Others are regarded as feminine, especially those things that are dear to us. The earth as mother Earth is regarded as the common maternal parent of all life. In languages that use gender for common nouns, boats, ships, and other vehicles almost invariably use a feminine form. Likewise, early seafarers spoke of their ships in the feminine gender for the close dependence they had on their ships for life and sustenance. "

Not as romantic as Ding's or my answer over on the other board.

I am really curious now as to why the German used "he". The gender in their language has no pattern, some masculine things such as " die krawatte" mean "the tie" an item normally associated with men, has a female gender to it. "der Rock" means "the dress" a feminine item that hasa masculine gender. The only "female" boat I can find German is "die Jacht" which means "the yaht". Perhaps somebody on the German formum can clear this up for us? Iknow I can post something there in German and try to find out if anybody knows.

Sean