MatchooW wrote:
shortfatbalduglyman wrote:
How they call dogs "he," and "she" instead of "it"
I call them he or she because (a) They have gender, so it's accurate and (b) because they're sentient beings and referring to an animal as an 'it' like he or she is an unfeeling object sends the wrong message to anyone who thinks otherwise. Calling a puppy an it before it's gender is confirmed is fine. Same with human babies.
But calling your car or boat a she is weird.
In school, I was quite unhappy with having to remember the gender of nouns in the Romance languages. I really wish someone had pointed out that in high-noise situations, having gender agreement within a sentence gives you nearly twice the chance of guessing the garbled words correctly.
Anthropomorphizing vehicles can seem odd, but it helps many people treat them with respect. People do all sorts of things that are not strictly functional, but help us focus better by co-opting other skills. There was only one top golfer who stopped thinking about his swing at the bottom. Others plan a follow-through, because it helps the middle bit be accurate. Other athletes have many odd "body english" habits, to the point that cyclists have completely forgotten the small steering motions they actually perform, and declared that they turn by leaning, as if force of will alone caused that. Musicians dance as they play, even though it makes accuracy much more complex for pianists, because the muscles have such useful memories.