Why are boats female?

[seadogg]

When and why did ships and boats become referred to as "she"?

[RATTER15]

Because they like to be full of seamen? :-)

[cazzz1975]

that has to be the reply of the day ratter ;)

[squarebear]

holy moley!

[seadogg]

Bravo ratter, reminds me of;
"She was only an admiral's daughter,
but her naval base was full of discharged seamen"

[scotman]

this migh thelp

http://answers.yahoo....20100106172805AA6cVWt

[mollykins]

Cars tend to be aswell . . . .

[Answerprancer]

My first thought was that when viewed from above they resemble the female fertility symbol "vesica piscis" ie. they look a bit like a mingepiece (scuse me ladies)

[wiggal]

Cars are also female too!

Apart from when me and my ex had a Nissan 300zx Fairlady, that was male, called the Reaper for some bizarrre reason!

[Prudentia]

because they have the best bottoms.

[SODIT]

Full of barnacles ?

[wiggal]

Especially my car prudentia, or are we still on boats here!?

[dzug2]

Not all ships are female - those named after male dignatories can be male

[SODIT]

Was it Sir Francis Drake who had a ship called The Golden Behind

[Prudentia]

I am repeatedly told that I have a lovely bottom, can't see it myself!!

[mike11111]

Not only that, but why are some men sometimes referred to as female?
This might give a clue.
http://www.youtube.co...8gigQ&feature=related

[Quizmonster]

In Old English, nouns had masculine, feminine or neutergender. When using appropriate pronouns, these would be he, she and it, respectively. When that system broke up, 'it' was used as the pronoun to refer to all nouns. However, some things considered somehow especially masculine were still referred to as 'he' for a long time afterwards - eg mountains, oak-trees etc - and others were still referred to as 'she' - eg boats, carriages etc.
The use of 'she' for a ship, for example, is at least as old as the 14th century in ‘modern' English and it was the same in Roman times. This may have been because their ships were dedicated often to goddesses, who were possibly the first figureheads carved on ships' prows. Even before that, in the language of the ancient Babylonians, ‘boat' was a feminine word, just as it was in Biblical Hebrew. That means Noah's ‘ark' was a feminine word, as boat is today in Italian and Arabic. ( The French - typically! - have masculine ships and the Germans have neuter ones.) The answer to your question as to why ships are called ‘she' is, therefore, a combination of language-development and history.

[mollykins]

Drakes ship was The Golden Hinde . . . . I never thought about ships named after men . . . .

[squarebear]

The USS Ronald Reagan isn't female!