A Ship; She, He or It?

[Crossroads]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Kuokkanen

In Finnish language, it has been it. Also our language don't have he/she, only 1 word for both genders without divider.

Coincidentally, words city & town are also grouped under 1 word, kaupunki, and in change of millennia was an outrage when news said that EU has declared Finland only having 7 kaupunki. News didn't say in what language it was said, and if it was in English, whether the word used was city or town.

warspite1

So in Finnish, if you say "he went to the shops", you say "it went to the shops??

he/she => "hän"
it => "se"

So I guess the translation to English would be something like "a person went to the shops", or something to that effect. As "it" ("se") should refer to animals and objects, only.

One of the local comedy show protagonists of yesteryears was a super hero similar to He-Man, known as "Hän-Mies". Joke being that although now the pronoun is gender neutral, "man" in Finnish refers only to males (and not to human beings, too).

While He-Man is of course a play with words as well, here the exact translation actually refers to a gender-neutral male [:D]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Kuokkanen

In Finnish language, it has been it. Also our language don't have he/she, only 1 word for both genders without divider.

Coincidentally, words city & town are also grouped under 1 word, kaupunki, and in change of millennia was an outrage when news said that EU has declared Finland only having 7 kaupunki. News didn't say in what language it was said, and if it was in English, whether the word used was city or town.

warspite1

So in Finnish, if you say "he went to the shops", you say "it went to the shops??

he/she => "hän"
it => "se"

So I guess the translation to English would be something like "a person went to the shops", or something to that effect. As "it" ("se") should refer to animals and objects, only.

One of the local comedy show protagonists of yesteryears was a super hero similar to He-Man, known as "Hän-Mies". Joke being that although now the pronoun is gender neutral, "man" in Finnish refers only to males (and not to human beings, too).

While He-Man is of course a play with words as well, here the exact translation actually refers to a gender-neutral male [:D]

warspite1

Thank-you for the explanation [:)].

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Crossroads

he/she => "hän"
it => "se"

So I guess the translation to English would be something like "a person went to the shops", or something to that effect. As "it" ("se") should refer to animals and objects, only.

It is used for humans too:
"Mitä se sanoi?" = "What it said?"

What comes to "man", translations are made, depending on context, as Finnish equivalents for human (ihminen) and mankind (ihmiskunta).

[Poopyhead]

Soon this won't matter, as English is being forced into androgyny. Ze will use a neutral pronoun for hir ship hirself.

[z1812]

Long ago, I asked my My Uncle, who was a British Sailor in the Navy, why ships were referred to as "she". He replied without any hesitation, in a wonderful salty accent, that it was because "Ships like women were hard to handle". Of course that was long before Gender Sensitivity.

[Freigeist83]

"She" of course. Old sailor tradition... [;)]