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Referring to ships as "she"

An archived discussion was mentioned but not linked to. Maybe Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (ships_as_"she"). I point out Gender-specific pronoun#Ships and countries. I find it odd that article Ship does not mention this terminology. (SEWilco 04:09, 26 June 2007 (UTC))

I found where the previous discussion of this has been archived, and I'm going to dig it up again. Not because I'm trying to start trouble, but I'm sorry, the current usage that Wikipedia has chosen to adopt is simply grammatically unsound.

First, I should probably give my credentials on this topic - I served 20 years in the Navy and Naval Reserve, and today I'm a civilian working for the Department of the Navy. My professional background is journalism and communications (what the government refers to as public affairs); currently I'm a Navy base public affairs officer. So I think I'm qualified to discuss what ships should be referred to as.

It is true that according to naval style, "she" and "her" are acceptable (and even preferred) terms for describing a ship; however, naval style also dictates that ship names are to always be written in all caps, i.e., USS NIMITZ, which is a style you rarely see outside of official naval correspondence (which is the only documents naval style applies to). In the Navy public affairs arena, we instead use the Associated Press Stylebook, which is the main guide used by print media outlets throughout the United States; that guide dictates "it" over "she", and as such, we the official communicators for the Department of the Navy, use "it".

Frankly, I see Wikipedia espousing all sorts of guides and sources for what it dictates to be good grammar, and of course the extremely vague "standard English practice". Most outlets that wish to be taken professionally, such as newspapers and magazines, prefer to adhere to a single source for their style, whether they make it up locally or borrow one that already exists. The one most used by media outlets is the Associated Press Stylebook, and it happens to be my personal favorite as it was the one that was taught to me in journalism school and which we've used throughout my career, but there are others and all are good. My point being is that Wikipedia can't be trying to fritter around and use this style source for this and that style source for that and then just say "standard English practice" when they don't like any of the style out there. It's simply unprofessional. You've got to pick one and go with it. Nolefan32 04:48, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

FYI, I failed to mention that under the current Wikipedia policy, which is based on a tradition to when ships were named after women, we now have the potential for such head-scratching phrases as "Ronald Reagan and her air wing departed for the Mediterranean ...." Since when is "Ronald Reagan" a "her"? Nolefan32 04:56, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The MOS doesn't usually -- and in my opinion, shouldn't -- get this detailed about word choice. It's a little bit similar to the British-v-American things; individual articles should be consistent within themselves, but we don't need to have a WP-wide policy. By the way, I would be really surprised to see the phrase you quoted -- it should probably be "the Ronald Reagan and her air wing...", which with the "the" and the italics, is not at all strange. --Trovatore 05:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

This gets even more complicated when one considers that in Russian ships are "he" if they are refered to by gender. Begs an interesting question on how we would refer to Russian ships on English Wikipedia, doesn't it?--LWF 05:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

What's wrong with using "it" to describe inanimate objects? It strikes me that referring to countries and vehicles as "she" is getting rather outdated. Exploding Boy 05:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure would make things simpler for us all.--LWF 05:34, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for you comment, Nolefan; you might have announced at the start that you were referring to the US Navy, because this is an international site. For that reason, among others, WP needs its own MOS. Within a few weeks, I'll be proposing an addition to the Usage section of this MOS concerning gender-specific language, which will contain a strong recommendation not to use "she" for ships and "men" for chess pieces, and the like; it will also map out the options for minimising the use of the generic male pronoun in our articles (i.e., to refer to people in general). Aside from any ideological issues, it's just a matter of being inclusive of all our readers, as the plain English people point out. This addition will, of course, require consensus before implementation in the MOS. Tony 05:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that "she" should be used for ships, (as does the Royal Navy (Google on [Royal Navy victory she site:mod.uk]) and would object to being told to write "it". Prohibitions on this sort of thing will probably cause more edit wars than they solve. --Philip Baird Shearer 11:25, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't care what your royal navy uses, and I note your implied threat to engage in edit wars. Tony 11:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, that is your Inference, it was not my intention to imply any sort of threat, and I think you should have assumed good faith. --Philip Baird Shearer 13:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Lloyd's List is as good a guide to British English in the field of maritime matters as the Senior Service: it uses "it". Physchim62 (talk) 12:55, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems that you were misinformed see " BBC: Business: The Economy The tug of tradition" July 24, 1998 --Philip Baird Shearer 18:40, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

In good faith, WP is no longer a child, and should have its own authoritative MOS now. We don't need to lean on external references. There are very good reasons for not using gendered pronouns for ships or machines. Tony 13:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, you and I appear to be on the same page on this. I do agree that it's best for WP is to develop its own exhaustive style. It doesn't work when every page has to be debated as to which particular existing style needs to be followed, and I'm seeing that happen on several of the pages I've visited. WP needs one source, one rulebook. I had suggested AP, that's the one I'm familar with, but you were right to remind me that WP is international (and I apologize for my myopia) and so they probably aren't the best for use here. For a starting point for the WP style, though, I would still recommend a journalistic style as they are the most universal (whereas, for example, a particular navy's style would only be suitable when discussing naval issues). Since we're international, Reuters might be a good one. Ultimately WP can develop its own style, sure, but you've got to start somewhere and that might be the place to begin. By the way, I would be careful about going with "by committee" style too much; one style guide I hate is the GPO styleguide, used by the U.S. Federal Government, it constantly contradicts itself because over the years, people have made additions here and subtractions there without considering there might be other entries that run parallel to the ones being changed. I would hate to see the WP style end up like the GPO.

And back to my original point, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who is bugged by the use of genderal pronouns for inanimate objects; I didn't consider the international implications, such as, for examples, some countries using male pronouns to describe ships while others use female. It just strikes me that there's a lot of good, verifyable reasons why to use gender-neutral pronouns for inanimate objects, and the people opposed have only their personal preference to submit as their argument. Nolefan32 14:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Journalistic is not particularly suitable for an online encyclopedia, which has its particular mode, methods, role and readership. Nor is Reuters, for the same reason, although our MOS might coincide in certain respects with external MOSs.

If we're going to get into the gendered pronoun thing now, the reason it's undesirable to many readers is that it's a vestige of a period when males felt it was natural to let their images of control over machines and vehicles seep into the language; this builds on constructions of male “superiority” that WP should not be touching in the 21st century. I realise that it's hard to kick the habit of calling ships "she" if you've done it professionally all your life, but ... it's unacceptable to too many people in this context. Best to be neutral, yes? Tony 14:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The irony is that making a recommendation like that is non-neutral. By espousing the reasons why some people would like to remove these gender-specific pronouns, you are endorsing and espousing their ideology. The vast, vast majority of Americans are not bothered by calling a ship a "she". Johntex\^talk 16:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Whatever the WP MOS decides about pronouns, the MOS on quotations should require as close as possible to the original phrasing. I am aware that translations of quotations complicate the issue. (SEWilco 16:13, 25 June 2007 (UTC))

I don't think this needs to be decided at the MOS level. If Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships comes up blue, you might take it up there.

I'm afraid I disagree that what Tony is promoting is "neutrality". It sounds to me like a political agenda. I'm against using the MOS to promote a political viewpoint. --Trovatore 18:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh heck, everythings' political, if you want to see it that way. It's certainly political to alow sexist language on WP. I intended "neutrality" in terms of gender neutrality. Tell me, are you advocating a return to the days of specifying someone's race when it's irrelevant to the context? Tony 01:34, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Your approach to this has been rather explicitly political. I do not agree that referring to ships as "she" is in fact sexist; I think your claim that it has to do with male domination is unproved and should not be codified here. (Note that I'm not in favor of codifying the reverse, either.)

It's not political to leave something out of the MOS. On the larger score, I'm opposed to your whole project of expanding the scope of the MOS, which I see as disruptive and unnecessary. It's useful to have a consistent organization for articles, to indicate the desired tone (formal and high register), and a few other miscellaneous things when necessary. But we get by just fine without a style book of the sort that a commercial encyclopedia would have. We aren't that sort of encyclopedia; volunteers don't appreciate having word choices dictated to them by people who aren't paying them. If we can stand one article saying "color" and another saying "colour" (which we can), then we can also stand one article saying "it" and another saying "she". --Trovatore 03:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Nope, both omission and inclusion can be political. I note the assumption that "political" is bad, bad, bad, and that politicians themselves have a history of framing this word as an attack on the rights and freedoms of individuals. I presume that Trovatore's reference to "expansion" refers specifically to the she-for-ships issue (can you specify in this respect whether it's just that or the whole non-sexist thing or something wider still?). Tony 04:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

No, "expansion" does not refer only (or even mainly) to she-for-ships. It refers to what I see (based on my browsing of comments in this talk page; please correct me if I got it wrong) as your desire to make the MOS, in general, a larger and more prescriptive document, and to aim for a greater stylistic uniformity to WP as a whole. I see no need for such an expansion, and I think that in the absence of necessity, instruction creep is a bad thing.

I also think that, when detailed stylistic choices are to be made for a group of related articles, the best forum is the relevant WikiProject, not the WP-wide MOS. For much the same reasons that you don't put speed limits in your country's constitution. The math WikiProject has worked especially hard on this for the math articles; I don't see why other WikiProjects can't do likewise. --Trovatore 04:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to make it more succinct, and indeed, in the parts that I've already collaboratively copy-edited, have done so, with the notable exception of hyphens and dashes, which was virtually a non-section before we got to it. What you say about the role of WikiProjects has already come up in relation to capitalisation (birds, etc); it requires case-by-case negotation to arrive at where the boundaries should be between a centralised, uniform guidelines for particular matters of style, and the role of the dispersed WikiProjects in this respect. I welcome your input, and wonder whether you'd like to specify any changes that have been made over the past few weeks where you have qualms about the MOS's scope. Tony 05:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, this much is sensible. I may have had you mixed up with another discussant a little. I do still object to attempts to legislate PC through the MOS. There's a perhaps-reasonable argument to be had that she-for-ships just isn't used much anymore and should be dropped for that reason. But to ban it for the reasons you've expressed is to take a position in favor of a claim of fact made by a particular ideological tendency. --Trovatore 05:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested to see what people think when I present the proposed text for gender-neutral usage here; mostly it will deal with the generic male pronoun when it stands for people in general, and ways of avoiding this. (If you're going to object to that, we'll need to fight it out here: need to avoid the male generic is now widely accepted, both within WP and more generally by English-speakers.) I'd be inclined to make the ship, country, chess-piece issue a recommendation to avoid the use of a gendered pronoun, rather than a "ban" on that use; however, if enough people support it, I'm happy with a stronger guideline. Tony 09:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, we'll see how the discussion goes. It's not clear your "generic male pronoun" is "male" at all; it's the unmarked form. It's also not clear that's particularly to the advantage of males anyway (who wants to be undistinguished?).

I am fairly shocked to see the chess article refer to all chessmen as "pieces". Pawns are not pieces; they're pawns. That's why you need the term "chessmen" to cover them both. Again I don't see how this is sexist; the Queen is a man, but so is the Rook, and the Rook is not even a human figure at all, so it's obviously just jargon and I don't see why it can't be left alone. --Trovatore 09:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I prefer "chess pieces", as it sounds more 21st century. We have to evolve our language to avoid sexist or racist terms, not due to political correctness, but due to the rise of these groups as equals to white males (plus, the plain language gods say so). For instance, "fireman" should be "firefighter", "waiter/waitress" should be "sever", etc. I'd laugh if someone actually got offended by these terms, but you'll be surprised what a child will think after hearing sexist/racist terms as a kid. — Deckiller 15:22, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you seriously think "chessmen" is sexist? On what theory? And what exactly do you say to mean "a piece other than a pawn"? But I'm not a chess expert and I don't see even any discussion at the chess article, so I won't fight that one. I don't object to "firefighter" and so on, and I do find that I tend to reword to avoid unmarked "he", when reasonable.

But there's a limit to how far I'll torture language to do it. For example, when discussing the functions of the president of the US, what can you do? I refuse to call the president "they", to say "he or she" seventy times, or to reword everything in the plural ("presidents of the United States have the authority to..."). At some point one just has to say, look, this is the language: In this context the word "he" does not imply male sex, it's just the unmarked form. And that is not sexist. --Trovatore 19:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

(Indents getting too large) Yes, I do think "chessmen" is undesirably gender-centric, and I don't need a "theory" to come to this conclusion. The queen is a chessman? The king is a chesswoman? And in any case, "chess pieces", and after the context is established, just "pieces", sounds nicer to me. Why not use inclusive language where there's no reason not to?

The use of "he" as the unmarked pronoun for everyone is sexist in itself. How old are you? 105? Yes, I agree that it's sometimes awkward to avoid gender-biased language, but there are a number of ways to achieve this, and good writers seem to manage. WP should try too, IMV. It's the 21st century. Tony 02:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

For the chessmen, as I say I'm not a chess expert so I won't fight about it, but the reason is what I said: Pawns aren't "pieces". When you talk about "losing a piece", you don't mean a pawn.

As for the claim that unmarked he is "sexist in itself" -- prove it. I say it's not sexist unless you intend it to be. Otherwise it's just a feature of the language -- sometimes "he" implies male sex, other times it doesn't. There is no need to read any claims about male domination into this. --Trovatore 04:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I went through several assignments in Business Writing on writing non-sexist language; it's not difficult, and we weren't even allowed to use singular they or "he or she". Plus, most FACs roll in with little sexist language. There's also the matter of formality; calling a ship "she" sounds informal and may confuse the reader, especially since a ship is a thing; therefore, "it" is used. — Deckiller 05:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a combination of "the ship", "it" and the name (e.g., "HMS Iraq"). Works just fine. Tony 05:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Deckiller, in calling the language "sexist", you're assuming facts not in evidence. Tony, yes, certainly, calling ships "it" is workable. I have never argued that it is not. --Trovatore 05:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm? I always thought it was logical to assume that the term "sexist" includes using gender pronouns where they don't belong, because it can be implied that way. It's how I've been instructed in college as well as on Wikipedia (by people like Tony, who make a career out of this sort of thing); thus, any evidence has been sold at textbook buyback or is on Tony's guides/in Wikipedia articles. Since we all agree that ships should be "it" not "she", this tangent is probably unnecessary now. — Deckiller 05:16, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

"Because they can be implied that way?" Pretty much anything can be construed pretty much any way. That's not a sufficient standard. And who says they don't belong? Sometimes "he" or "she" implies biological sex, sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't, some want to say, there's a sexist subtext. But I say, prove there's such a subtext. Otherwise it's just part of the language, inherently neutral; if the terms don't imply biological sex then they just don't, and it doesn't have to mean anything else. --Trovatore 05:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Choosing one of the two genders to be the unmarked form is a fundamental assymetry that privileges that gender. So why do it? The whole idea of avoiding the generic male pronoun is to avoid the assumption that male is natural, and female needs to be specially marked. Tony 05:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

One of the genders, in the strict grammatical sense -- not one of the sexes (nor one of the "gender identities", whatever those are exactly). Grammatically masculine pronouns often denote a male referent, but here they don't. So you haven't shown there's any "assumption that male is natural" involved, because the masculine pronoun does not refer to maleness in this situation. --Trovatore 08:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

You can assert that he is gender-neutral all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that it is jarring to a lot of readers and is becoming increasingly rare. People just don't use he that way anymore—they use singular they. It is the unconscious, natural choice, whereas "gender-neutral" he causes readers to dart back and look for a male antecedent. Strad 14:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course it's not gender-neutral -- it's grammatically masculine gender, which has nothing necessarily to do with sex. It can be used in a sex-neutral way. Let's at least keep our terms straight. As for singular "they", you're right about it being the natural choice in casual speech. It's not the natural choice for highly formal writing such as an encyclopedia; in that register, singular "they" is far more jarring than unmarked "he". --Trovatore 18:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Pity the poor Germans, whose language forces them to assign linguistic gender to nouns. Perhaps "das Baby" (the baby) will not be traumatized by assignment of a neutral gender, but what is the lasting psychological damage to "das Mädchen" (the girl)? And "das Auge" (the eye) of the bewildered lass is masculine, but "der Mund" (the mouth) is feminine! English is, of course, a Germanic language (with massive incursions from Latin and French, which also use gender), so perhaps we can be excused for our horrible hidebound (inadvertent) sexist speech. Wikipedia refuses to censor images to avoid offending delicate sensibilities, yet we are being asked to censor our pronouns, and for dubious reasons at that. A reader who cannot distinguish deliberate face slapping from accidental toe stepping will be endlessly offended; shall we stand still to avoid the risk? --KSmrq^T 19:15, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for raising that interesting point, KSmrq. (1) There's a clear difference in those languages between grammatical gender for all nouns and their use of the generic male pronoun to stand for people of both genders. (2) WRT "she for ships", the seemingly arbitrary classification of all nouns by gender in many foreign languages—even neuter in German for "the maiden" (das Mädchen)—is a very different phenomenon from the isolated examples in English of using "she" for mechanical objects and vehicles that are typically used and controlled by males, where the very rarity and specificity of this usage marks it out as having an underlying purpose. Tony 02:52, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

(Outdent) Tony, I see that now you're at least arguing that there's an "underlying purpose", rather than merely asserting that the usage is "inherently sexist". That's a step in the right direction.

Here's what I think: We're not going to be able to settle the question of whether there's such an underlying purpose. What I hope I've demonstrated is that that is the central question; the usage itself is not inherently sexist, as there's no inherent reason that "he" must refer to maleness. However I acknowledge that readers have rational grounds to suspect that it does.

So I would be on board for a guideline that encourages rewording to avoid unmarked "he", on a few conditions: (1) that it provide enough wiggle room in cases where the rewording is just too awkward, (2) that it not encourage singular "they", and (3) that it not present as fact, or otherwise assume as fact, ideological social theories regarding the role of language in group domination. --Trovatore 23:56, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You may be interested in reading this WRT your second point. Tony 08:53, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

• In the specific case of Chess, "Man" and "Piece" are technical terms with well established and non-equivalent meanings. A piece refers to a King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, or Rook/Castle. A man is a piece or a Pawn. Anyone writing in a serious chess publication who used "piece" to refer to a pawn would be taken about as seriously as one who used "cleric" in place of "bishop" to avoid religious discrimination. The original reasons for this distinction may be due to the sexism that existed when chess terminology was codified. That doesn't matter. What matters is that this is the common usage among serious chess player and publications, and Wikipedia should therefore use it until and unless it changes. Wikipedia should describe the world, not attempt to change it. DES ^(talk) 23:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well ... why not call them pawns? Pieces and pawns—simple. Tony 00:46, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

In many cases this can be done. But since the field of chess traditionally and commonly uses "men" as the collective for pawns and pieces, Wikipedia should report this fact. Not to do so may confuse someone who reads a work on chess that assumes this distinction, and so is a disservice to our readers. Moreover, it is a violation of WP:NPOV -- not to report the terms used, because our editors, or some of them, disapprove of them as not being gender neutral, is to try to impose our viewpoint on the world at large, which would be wrong. It would be the same sort of thing (although not as blatant) as to fail to mention that some religions routinely use language such as "God the Father" because that language is not gender neutral. Wikipeida must report the facts accurately, whether we approve of them or not, and it is simply a fact that in chess "men" is the collective term, and "pieces" is a more restricted term. It may be silly, it may be sexist on the part of chess-players, but it is the fact. DES ^(talk) 02:08, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course these things must be reported. That doesn't mean that they have to be infused into WP's language. Tony 02:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You absolutely need a single term for all the -- let's call them "objects" -- that the players move on the chessboard. The traditional term is "men". I think that to call this "sexist" is frankly a major major reach; you have to stretch really hard to explain how this usage has anything to do with male superiority.

However the current article calls all chessmen "pieces", and there doesn't seem to be any recent controversy about it in the history or on the talk page. So not being a very serious player, and even less of a chess historian, I personally figure that one is not my fight. If a dispute did come up, I would definitely state my view that there is no perceptible sexism in the traditional usage. --Trovatore 05:39, 30 June 2007 (UTC)