 | This is an essay on the pretension and stupidity of referring to ships as she. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints. |
 | This page in a nutshell: Referring to ships as she has at least the redeeming quality of being a potential source of amusement. |
This page is for accumulating amusing passages – real or hypothetical – made possible by referring to ships as she, and for general derision of that pretentious and stupid practice.[1] (Ridicule of other forms of stylistic pretension is welcome as well.) It was inspired by this discussion at WT:MOS (and see also WT:Manual of Style/Archive (ships as "she") for more background).
- ^ In the many, MANY, MANY debates on the subject of referring to ships as she, much ink has been spilled in argument over whether or not that practice is sexist. It seems unnecessary to answer that question, however, since the stupidity and pretension of such references should be enough, on their own, to decide the bottom-line issue [1]. But in case it's not obvious (and apparently it's not [2]): the thrust (<cough>) of this essay's examples is to illustrate that -- as so often is the case -- stupidity, pretension, and sexism (not to mention other distasteful -isms) often go hand in hand.