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September 22 Information
Referring to countries/cities as "she"
I've just finished reading an excellent book: "The American Commonwealth" (2 volumes), written by the British jurist
Viscount James Bryce, and published in 1888. In vol. 1, chapter 36, the author writes (about Switzerland): "she is a small country...". At the end of Chapter 3, footnote no. 15, he writes: "New York was reckoned among the smaller states...but her central geographical position made her adhesion extremely important". And see also in
CNN website: "the way USA determines the means to protect her borders".
(ec) I don't believe this is common anymore. You only see it in "motherland" sort of contexts (and note that the poster on that CNN page is posting ultra-patriotic stuff, which fits that). Neither of the two Bryce usages would be said today (or, at least, they would raise eyebrows). And note that in the CNN page, saying "to protect its borders" would be just as acceptable; if anything, "her borders" is the
marked form. rʨanaɢtalk/contribs07:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
John Howard quite often used female pronouns in reference to Australia during his career. Some thought this was further evidence that he was stuck in the 1950s. Others liked it. --
JackofOz (
talk)
08:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
This usage is probably no more common in any regional dialect of English than in others. The usage is a stylistic variation possible (but uncommon today) in all regional dialects of English.
Marco polo (
talk)
14:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
According to
H W Fowler, the feminine should be used if the country is actively personified ("France has decided to withdraw her ministers from the conference", cf "The French Government has decided to withdraw its ministers from the conference"), but not when it's merely referred to ("France has an area of 674000 km2; its border with Spain is 623 km long...").
Tevildo (
talk)
19:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
In the OP's CNN example, "her" is correct (well, more arguable-for) because of the personification involved in "determines". Fowler would not have approved of the Bryce examples (he didn't approve of the way in which many authors wrote,
Marie Corelli in particular). :)
Tevildo (
talk)
19:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
A current question on another desk reminds me that female figures are usually used as personifications of nations, e.g. Lady Liberty, and those bare-breasted hussies Britannica and La Marianne. It's no great distance from there to female pronouns. The French word "patrie", meaning fatherland, is of feminine gender. --
JackofOz (
talk)
20:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
But my point is, whether it's grammatically feminine or masculine has nearly no bearing on what the word actually means. Grammatical gender in the Romance languages is almost entirely arbitrary. (For instance, French la poste [the post office] vs. le poste [the job, the position]—positions aren't inherently more manly than post offices.) rʨanaɢtalk/contribs02:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Yes, I know all this. My comment was a failed attempt to be humorous, hence the closing smiley. However, one cannot help wondering whether, in such instances (or their inverse), there is any subconscious cognitive clash or emotional modification resulting from the contradiction between an overtly masculine/feminine word and its contrasting grammatical femininity/masculinity.
87.81.230.195 (
talk)
19:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
That could be turned into an interesting
EEG experiment by watching the
left anterior negativity or
N400 brain responses. Somewhat similar experiments have been done with, for example, pronoun references to nouns that are societally predisposed towards being male or female (for example, having an American subject read a paragraph that talks about "the doctor", "the doctor", "the doctor", and then later see the doctor referred to with the pronoun 'she'... even in the most educated, open-minded of subjects often show a "surprised" LAN response like what you would generally see for gender disagreement—suggesting we have deep-seated, unconscious gender stereotyping without even realizing it). rʨanaɢtalk/contribs14:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Hi. I need a little help with IPA. Could anyone turn: "The coming week will feature ball lighting, skin lesions, and a runaway gasoline truck. Then things will get ugly," into symbols?
141.161.133.154 (
talk)
14:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
No, not a clairvoyant but somebody who knows which buttons to click to geolocate the poster. Click on poster's ID, this will take you to their contributions page. Then look right at the bottom of that page and click on 'Geolocate', it will not always identify with such precision. It does not work if the poster is properly logged in.
86.4.186.107 (
talk)
07:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
First get yourself a big piece of paper and a pen and go to this site,
[1], click on the box for thirteen lettered words (don't fill in any boxes)and you will get a list of many hundreds - and in alphabetical order!
Richard Avery (
talk)
15:39, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Doing that does also give you some phrases that are 13 characters (including spaces) long, such as "a_question_of", but you can ignore such results. +
Angr15:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Are you sure that "the first listed word" there is abastardizing and that the "last one-word" there is zygodactylous? Just if you consider 13 letter words only. Generally, the first word there (excluding acronyms) is aah, and the last word there (excluding acronyms) is zyxst.
HOOTmag (
talk)
16:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
(@HOOTmag: I was talking about words within the frame of this question and its first two answers. I.e., all 13-letter words in Richard Avery's database. not shorter or longer words, not words in other languages, not words stored in other databases. ---
Sluzzelintalk17:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Get a list of words you find acceptable, get grep for Windows, or find someone to run this in bash:
cat wordlist | grep -i '^[A-Z]\{13\}$'
Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the
current reference desk pages.
September 22 Information
Referring to countries/cities as "she"
I've just finished reading an excellent book: "The American Commonwealth" (2 volumes), written by the British jurist
Viscount James Bryce, and published in 1888. In vol. 1, chapter 36, the author writes (about Switzerland): "she is a small country...". At the end of Chapter 3, footnote no. 15, he writes: "New York was reckoned among the smaller states...but her central geographical position made her adhesion extremely important". And see also in
CNN website: "the way USA determines the means to protect her borders".
(ec) I don't believe this is common anymore. You only see it in "motherland" sort of contexts (and note that the poster on that CNN page is posting ultra-patriotic stuff, which fits that). Neither of the two Bryce usages would be said today (or, at least, they would raise eyebrows). And note that in the CNN page, saying "to protect its borders" would be just as acceptable; if anything, "her borders" is the
marked form. rʨanaɢtalk/contribs07:56, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
John Howard quite often used female pronouns in reference to Australia during his career. Some thought this was further evidence that he was stuck in the 1950s. Others liked it. --
JackofOz (
talk)
08:21, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
This usage is probably no more common in any regional dialect of English than in others. The usage is a stylistic variation possible (but uncommon today) in all regional dialects of English.
Marco polo (
talk)
14:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
According to
H W Fowler, the feminine should be used if the country is actively personified ("France has decided to withdraw her ministers from the conference", cf "The French Government has decided to withdraw its ministers from the conference"), but not when it's merely referred to ("France has an area of 674000 km2; its border with Spain is 623 km long...").
Tevildo (
talk)
19:12, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
In the OP's CNN example, "her" is correct (well, more arguable-for) because of the personification involved in "determines". Fowler would not have approved of the Bryce examples (he didn't approve of the way in which many authors wrote,
Marie Corelli in particular). :)
Tevildo (
talk)
19:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
A current question on another desk reminds me that female figures are usually used as personifications of nations, e.g. Lady Liberty, and those bare-breasted hussies Britannica and La Marianne. It's no great distance from there to female pronouns. The French word "patrie", meaning fatherland, is of feminine gender. --
JackofOz (
talk)
20:15, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
But my point is, whether it's grammatically feminine or masculine has nearly no bearing on what the word actually means. Grammatical gender in the Romance languages is almost entirely arbitrary. (For instance, French la poste [the post office] vs. le poste [the job, the position]—positions aren't inherently more manly than post offices.) rʨanaɢtalk/contribs02:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Yes, I know all this. My comment was a failed attempt to be humorous, hence the closing smiley. However, one cannot help wondering whether, in such instances (or their inverse), there is any subconscious cognitive clash or emotional modification resulting from the contradiction between an overtly masculine/feminine word and its contrasting grammatical femininity/masculinity.
87.81.230.195 (
talk)
19:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
That could be turned into an interesting
EEG experiment by watching the
left anterior negativity or
N400 brain responses. Somewhat similar experiments have been done with, for example, pronoun references to nouns that are societally predisposed towards being male or female (for example, having an American subject read a paragraph that talks about "the doctor", "the doctor", "the doctor", and then later see the doctor referred to with the pronoun 'she'... even in the most educated, open-minded of subjects often show a "surprised" LAN response like what you would generally see for gender disagreement—suggesting we have deep-seated, unconscious gender stereotyping without even realizing it). rʨanaɢtalk/contribs14:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Hi. I need a little help with IPA. Could anyone turn: "The coming week will feature ball lighting, skin lesions, and a runaway gasoline truck. Then things will get ugly," into symbols?
141.161.133.154 (
talk)
14:55, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
No, not a clairvoyant but somebody who knows which buttons to click to geolocate the poster. Click on poster's ID, this will take you to their contributions page. Then look right at the bottom of that page and click on 'Geolocate', it will not always identify with such precision. It does not work if the poster is properly logged in.
86.4.186.107 (
talk)
07:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
First get yourself a big piece of paper and a pen and go to this site,
[1], click on the box for thirteen lettered words (don't fill in any boxes)and you will get a list of many hundreds - and in alphabetical order!
Richard Avery (
talk)
15:39, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Doing that does also give you some phrases that are 13 characters (including spaces) long, such as "a_question_of", but you can ignore such results. +
Angr15:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Are you sure that "the first listed word" there is abastardizing and that the "last one-word" there is zygodactylous? Just if you consider 13 letter words only. Generally, the first word there (excluding acronyms) is aah, and the last word there (excluding acronyms) is zyxst.
HOOTmag (
talk)
16:33, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
(@HOOTmag: I was talking about words within the frame of this question and its first two answers. I.e., all 13-letter words in Richard Avery's database. not shorter or longer words, not words in other languages, not words stored in other databases. ---
Sluzzelintalk17:16, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Get a list of words you find acceptable, get grep for Windows, or find someone to run this in bash:
cat wordlist | grep -i '^[A-Z]\{13\}$'