This is an essay on the pretension and stupidity of referring to ships as she.
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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. (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).
After Queen Elizabeth broke a bottle of champagne against the ship's gigantic bow, she slipped majestically into the water.[1]
During this period, she also served as the escort for Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard his yacht Hohenzollern.[2]
Fearing that he might lose the prize if the winds changed, Morris rammed her.[3]
Archibald Dickson raised his flag in her.[4]
She had a long career under several distinguished commanders.[5]
Lusitania does not appear to be so lusty as the Mauretania ... If Lussie doesn't hump herself and do it first she won't be in it with her big sister.[1]
N.B. There is an appropriate use of the "he would later" form, and that's when taking a temporary jump into the future during an otherwise chronologically linear narrative -- but to be clear, not all such cases justify the "he would later" form. Here's an example (abridged a bit here) from Statue of John Harvard:
The commission weighed heavily on French even as the figure neared completion. "I am sometimes scared by the importance of this work. It is a subject that one might not have in a lifetime," wrote the sculptor—who thirty years later would create the statue of Abraham Lincoln for the Lincoln Memorial—"and a failure would be inexcusable."French's final model was ready the following May and realized in bronze by the Henry-Bonnard Bronze Company over the next several months.
Now, technically "who thirty years later would create" could be rendered as "who thirty years later created", and it's hard to explain why exactly the former form is preferable to the latter, in this particular case. (There might be other appropriate uses as well, but your correspondent just vacuumed the house so he's too pooped to think of any.)[2]
The following examples all lack the key component, found in the above passage, that's required to justify the "he would later" form: a temporary jump into the future. So the woulds get axed:[3]
Closely related constructions include:
Albino Luciani (later to become Pope John Paul I)[citation needed]
The SL-8200 was to compete against the VHS VCRs.[4]