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Department of Linguistics

AUSTRALIAN STYLE

A NATIONAL BULLETIN ON ISSUES IN
AUSTRALIAN STYLE AND ENGLISH IN AUSTRALIA

Volume 16 No 1   APRIL 2009

LETTERS

 

Dear Pam

I have a curly question for you.

For as long as I can remember, ships have been referred to as female;
e.g. HMAS Melbourne  was an aircraft carrier in the Royal Australian
Navy, and her displacement was about 20,000 tonnes.

My question is this: is it politically correct to refer to ships as
"she/her", or would the purists object, and refer to "it". I will
probably continue to use the female, but I am interested in what you
think about political correctness in this instance.

Phil Helmore

via email

 

 

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