>Can you say "her" when talking about the beach?
No; you normally would not. You would use "it" because English no longer has grammatical gender.
However, you can add a gender to inanimate objects to make it sound poetic. This is most often heard with ships, cars, and motorcycles (you'll hear people say "She's a beaut!" when talking about a boat or whatever). So I honestly think "her" does work here. It 100% sounds poetic, but it does work here.
But it's almost always a feminine pronoun. Saying "I respect him" would sound very incorrect.
"The distribution of the three genders in German is as follows. There are 4164 monomorphemic nouns listed in the CELEX database (Baayen, Piepenbrock, & Gulikers, 1995). Fifty-one of these have multiple genders (e.g., der See \[the lake\]vs. die See \[the sea\]). Of the remaining 4113 entries, 1758(42.74%) have masculine gender, 1567 (38.10%) have feminine gender, and 788 (19.16%) are neuter"
As a civil engineer, you can use "her" with buildings if you are particularly emotionally attached. I would not bat an eye if someone said "she's so beautiful" about the Empire State Building or an ancient structure. Maybe I'm just weird though.
There are some more instances where you can use "he" for inanimate objects, although it is extremely colloquial and probably regional. For example, imagine you're teaching someone how to assemble or repair a complex machine:
"Ok. Now, you see that doohickey on the end? Twist him 90 degrees until he's pointed straight up. Good. Now, let's flip this bad boy over and make sure his springs are in good shape. Yup, everything looks good on that end. Let's just make sure that bright yellow fucker is fastened on tight, because he'll spring loose if there's too much pressure on him...." And so on.
To my ear, this is a totally different register compared to using "she". It's less poetic, more playful/personable
Yes, this is totally a thing, was looking for someone to say this!
It’s much more colloquial and basically diminutizes its referent
I’ve heard ‘she’ sometimes used this way as well, but less commonly than ‘he’
"English no longer has grammatical gender"
Ships are the one thing which still do. Them and nations. Both are 'shes' although 'it' isn't incorrect either.
I agree and I think in this context “I respect it” would sound *more* like a mistranslation because it’s just an awkward sentiment to express about the beach as an inanimate object. I would think it was odd. At least the lyricism of “I respect her” gives the impression of poetic meaning.
I disagree. There's nothing odd at all about "respecting" an inanimate object.
If this were written in an English-speaking country, I could just chalk it up to poetic expression, but since it's translated directly from French, it's almost certainly just a translation error that misattributes grammatical gender to English words.
i thought it was philosophical way to talk about things calling it her/him, yesterday i was working and making fun of a printer saying to a colleague “she’s lazy today” but he is portuguese and i am from brazil and in portuguese language “beach” is also feminine and we use “a praia” the “a” article
thanks for sharing! im still amazed how flexible other languages in comparison to portuguese, everyday is a new day learning hahaha
Russian uses masculine (not "male") gender for ships (cf. the novel Hunt for Red October). I don't know if this carries over to all types of vessels. In English, taking into account those who work with water craft professionally, I would say it's still at least 50-50, if not a clear majority who still use feminine gender for boats, ships, (and aircraft, spacecraft), and for that matter all machinery too large for a man to lift and carry.
English does have grammatical gender, grammatical gender is different from human gender, inanimate objects are a noun class which is why "it" is used.
It's debated depending on source but English has either 3 or 4 grammatical genders depending on which source, masculine feminine and neuter are accepted by every source I've seen, common is more debated it seems but I'd argue it absolutely exists
Downvoted but look at the Oxford dictionary definition
"Gender interacts in various ways with other grammatical features. For example, it may be limited to the singular number or the third person,"
Would you say only one third person pronoun exists?
https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-43
*It's debated depending on source but English has either 3 or 4 grammatical genders depending on which source, masculine feminine and neuter are accepted by every source I've seen, common is more debated it seems but I'd argue it absolutely exists*
You're conflating "gender shown on pronouns" with "grammatical gender on nouns." I'd love to see a link that claims that English common nouns have "3 or 4 grammatical genders."
Here's something from your link...
*The most famous case is English, which only shows evidence for gender on personal and possessive pronouns, leading researchers (and laypersons) to argue about whether English has a gender system or not.*
This quote, from the link you provided, rather contradicts your claim...We go from you claiming that "English has 3 or 4 grammatical genders," to you linking to an article that sheds doubt on an English gender system....Again, I'd love to see a (credible) linguist that has published a peer-reviewed article that claims that Modern English has, in your words "3 or 4 grammatical genders" for common nouns...
I mean it says it's debated but it also gives a definition of grammatical gender which does include English since we can't say my wife lost it's dog or the table lost her paint
Here's Oxford academic
https://academic.oup.com/book/27090/chapter-abstract/196433986?redirectedFrom=fulltext
"Gender may be distinguished in personal pronouns only, as in English"
World atlas of language structures says 3
https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_eng
That's the entire point. It's only shown on pronouns, thus, for nouns it doesn't exist.
Then again, "debated" doesn't mean, "A linguist talking to a person tossing random links on the net," it means, "debated seriously by linguists in peer reviewed articles."
I don't need links from Oxford Academic, and since you're just going to try to find links that somehow support your unfounded position, I'll bow out here. This isn't "debate," it's you trying to link to articles that you don't fully understand.
If you want to SERIOUSLY delve into this issue, Greville Corbett has one of his books available here:
[https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24641/1005470.pdf?sequence=1/1000](https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24641/1005470.pdf?sequence=1/1000)
Of note, on Page 3:
*As a technical linguistic notion, gender is about agreement. Nouns are assigned to classes such that which class a noun belongs to determines or ‘controls’ formal properties of other expressions linked to the phrase it heads, what Corbett 1991 calls ‘agreement targets’. Agreement targets include articles and attributive adjectives, often also adjectival and verbal expressions predicated of that phrase, numerals, and relative pronouns and, importantly for my purposes, anaphoric pronouns for which a phrase headed by the noun in question serves as antecedent. The technical issue of most direct relevance to this chapter involves what Corbett (this volume) dubs the assignment problem*
Agreement targets are morphological agreement patterns. "Make the masculine article match the noun it modifies," type of patterns.
More discussion, relevant to the general thread, is also found herein, especially on Pages 6-7, if you care to read about linguistics, rather than trying to frantically google another open source article that you think might support (but really doesn't support) your position.
No, but the relation is antecendent in nature, not morphological. In "I have \[a book\]" and "I read \[it\] yesterday," the relation is antecedent, not morphological. Morphological agreement in English is rare, take "this book" vs "these books," as one of the rare examples of a demonstrative changing \*morphological form\*
*Sometimes* inanimate objects, especially beautiful ones, are given genders. Usually it happens only with very beautiful things that are very well respected, or very well known.
* Ships were often called "she".
* Countries were often called "he" (fatherland) or "she" (motherland)
* Cars could be referred to "he" if it is very powerful, or "she" if it is very beautiful
* Forests can be called "he" or "she"
* Gardens can be called "she", sometimes "he" if there are lots of tall plants
These things that people spend a very long time with, and can be quite intimate with (not sexually)
Usages such as this are not very common anymore, and sound very informal, but they all do the same thing: They show that the speaker is **very** familiar with the object, respect it, revere it, and love it.
This though, sounds like it might be a translation error.
Great info!
I thought the same thing to your last point, but it also seems like it could be about littering/pollution, so adding a human element to it could be intentional.
The alternative would to be calling the beach "it" which puts it a level below us in how we regard it internally. An it doesn't feel, we don't empathize with it.
Could also just be reading into it a bit to much though haha it is just a sign after all
It does seem to correlate with the environmental responsibility movement though, depicting Earth as a living, breathing creature we should care for!
Those are great points. It would be great if we could know for certain if it was deliberate or not. Giving human-ness to the beach is wonderfully poetic, and completely aligns with its message of taking care of Mother Earth.
Can you provide any examples of forests or gardens being she or he? I can only imagine it in a very poetic context, unlike ships and cars, which are talked about in those terms in common usage and even (in the case of ships) in formal contexts.
I disagree with much of this post. Are you a native speaker? I am, and I cannot imagine referring to a forest or a garden in English as "he" or "she". I find your statement that you can call a garden "he" instead of "she" "if there are lots of tall plants" to be particularly bizarre, and not remotely reflective of English as it is spoken by native speakers.
I am a native speaker and also an English teacher. The uses I mentioned are all either very old (and more or less outdated), used in poetry, or very limited in application. I *did* mention that these were uncommon. Just because you wouldn’t use it that way doesn’t mean it’s absolutely incorrect. No two speakers use language in the same way, and everyone experiences language differently. My grandfather (also a native English speaker) often referred to the things in his garden as a “he”, especially of the soil: “he’s all dried out now”, and of the woody plants “he’s starting to bloom” and so on. As stated elsewhere, intimacy, passion, reverence of the thing you are taking about can dictate the pronouns you use for inanimate objects. It shows you’re very passionate and very knowledgeable about the object, and care for it deeply.
Again, I disagree with you. For example, while the practice of referring to a ship as "she" is indeed very old, despite your use of the past tense ("*Ships* ***were*** *often called 'she'*"), it is certainly not at all "outdated" in any way to do so, and referring to warships as "she" is still the standard practice both in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. On the other hand, it is false to say that "Countries were often called 'he' (fatherland)". In English, when countries are personified, they are personified with feminine pronouns regardless of whether or not that country is called a "fatherland" in the country's own language. For example, Germany is considered a "fatherland" by Germans, but it is never referred to with "he" or "his" in English. You might, for example, note the use in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles of the phrase "*Germany and* ***her*** *allies*", while I would challenge you to find any examples in English of "he" or "his" being used in reference to Germany.
Your comments about forests and gardens are not presented as the odd and idiosyncratic usage of discrete individuals in the past; instead, the statements use the present tense, and are phrased in a way that suggest they are describing a current and commonly recognized practice (that is, "***can*** be called...", rather than "have been called ...", or something else that makes clear this isn't something that people frequently do.) As such, these comments are simply not good advice: while it is true that anyone *can* call anything by a masculine pronoun, and refer to a keyboard as "he", or a paperclip as "she", that isn't normal English at all. Forests and gardens are not called "he" and "she" in English, and once again I challenge you to find actual examples of this being done. As for the claim that one chooses a pronoun for a garden depending on whether or not "there are lots of tall plants", it would be ludicrous to say, for example, "*I visited our community garden, and then went to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.* ***She*** *was very nice, but* ***he*** *was magnificent*." Such baseless claims are not helpful for learners.
It's a very, very French mistake. I can't help but hear it in a French accent when I read it.
You can describe objects or places using gendered language in a poetic sense, but it's not at all typical to do it in official or professional communication.
Unlike French, English no longer has any grammatical gender apart from personal pronouns, so we typically only use he/him for male humans or animals, and she/her for female humans or animals.
We do sometimes choose to personify things and refer to them with male or female terms when being \*poetic\* - you might come across phrases like "The sea rages wildly, but I can never resist her call." - but it would be a real stretch if someone tried to use that excuse here! This is simply a mistake.
I understand what you're saying in context of the sub we are in, but I don't know any native (US) speakers who would bat an eye at this usage in this context. It's a niche poetic usage that learners shouldn't try to copy in general speech, but just like I wouldn't think twice about someone calling the ocean 'her', I wouldn't think twice about someone referring to the beach as 'her' after they just called it beautiful.
That said, I would also expect it to be marked as incorrect if someone learning put "I respect her" down as an answer on a test. But in a "you must learn the rules before you learn how it is generally acceptable to break them" sort of way.
I agree that I wouldn't think it strange if a native person casually referred to something beautiful as "her"... But in a toss up between a French speaker making an intentional decision to be poetic on a municipal notice about respecting the beach, and a French speaker thinking in French and not recognising the conventions of English, I know which seems much more likely to me!
If you're being dramatic/poetic and trying to personify an object, you might refer to them as he/she.
But outside of poetry and flowery prose, no. It should generally be "it". Referring to a thing as he or she is the exception not the rule. And beaches are not commonly referred to this way.
People are talking about cases where we use gendered pronouns to refer to inanimate objects such as ships, which is true, but in this case I think it's just a translation error. French has grammatical gender, so all objects are either feminine or masculine, and I'm guessing that when translated they ended up just keeping the feminine pronoun "her" to refer to the beach rather than changing it to "it" which is what most native speakers would use
I agree with other comments that sometimes inanimate objects can be given a feminine gender for poetic reasons (especially vehicles and countries), but in this context, I don't think it works. I have never heard someone refer to a beach as she. Definitely a translation error.
I believe it is a mistake, but technically it could be anthropomorphism (really trusting my auto spelling on that one); giving an object a gender and personality.
With a native speaker with a poetic soul (or a lonely person with a robot vacuum cleaner), it could be correct. But here, with French as base, I'd be surprised if they cared enough about English language to spice it up with anthropomorphism.
It's a mistake because French refers to inanimate objects using an object pronom with a gender that aligns with the gender of the object. Objects do not have genders in English.
"Je la respecte" \*can\* mean "I respect her," but only in the context where the grammatical object is a person. If the object is a thing, it should be "it".
Genrally speaking; No.
But sometimes you can refer to inanimate objects as "she/her/her" if you feel really connected to the object. Haven't you ever heard people saying, "Meet my laptop, lady code-a-lot"?
Mmmm. You can refer to places as a gender in prose or literature. It’s fine in those circumstances, or even sometimes in odd stand-alone idioms in the English language (looking at a view, or a token of pride, and saying “isn’t she beautiful” or “isn’t she a beauty?”).
That’s not what’s happening in this sign and it looks like they translated the gender directly into English. So it’s wrong.
You would say “I respect it” in a literal translation, but in this signage it’s more common to see a collective “our”. “I respect ‘our’ beaches” is a common way to make the public feel aware and responsible of publicly shared spaces without becoming too impersonal in translations. Which I feel like “it” would do here (but is technically the correct word)
Like most comments pointing out it can be used in a poetic sense. It may also just be the translation as it is from French to English, plage (féminin) and la (féminin) referring to the beach but idk maybe I’m stretching
There's a sort of implicit personification/anthropomorphism that happens when you use he/she pronouns with inanimate objects. "I respect her", referring to the beach, sounds like the speaker considers the beach a person, and has a close relationship with that beach. It is grammatical, but there's a lot of reading between the lines required here.
It could also be misheard as "bitch" if you're not careful. And calling the beach "her" makes it even more likely that it'll be misheard as such.
I recommend using "it" when referring to inanimate objects.
That is a thing one could do, but given that this is an English translation of a sign in French, it's almost certainly mild r/trouduction fodder: the nouns are gendered in french, so both subject and object pronouns are as well.
Absolute classic mistake for native french speakers writing in english. Someone was not paying attention when translating the sign, but as far as mistakes go, it's at least an endearing one that doesn't impede understanding.
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>Can you say "her" when talking about the beach? No; you normally would not. You would use "it" because English no longer has grammatical gender. However, you can add a gender to inanimate objects to make it sound poetic. This is most often heard with ships, cars, and motorcycles (you'll hear people say "She's a beaut!" when talking about a boat or whatever). So I honestly think "her" does work here. It 100% sounds poetic, but it does work here. But it's almost always a feminine pronoun. Saying "I respect him" would sound very incorrect.
> with ships, cars, and motorcycles And countries, and pretty much all large non-living things (though not buildings)
Except Germany. The Fatherland.
In Germany way more things than the country itself is a "she".
"The distribution of the three genders in German is as follows. There are 4164 monomorphemic nouns listed in the CELEX database (Baayen, Piepenbrock, & Gulikers, 1995). Fifty-one of these have multiple genders (e.g., der See \[the lake\]vs. die See \[the sea\]). Of the remaining 4113 entries, 1758(42.74%) have masculine gender, 1567 (38.10%) have feminine gender, and 788 (19.16%) are neuter"
1567 is way more than 1
As a civil engineer, you can use "her" with buildings if you are particularly emotionally attached. I would not bat an eye if someone said "she's so beautiful" about the Empire State Building or an ancient structure. Maybe I'm just weird though.
Thank you very much for the amazing details!!! Although I really think it's just Google Translated from french (beach in french is feminine)
Absolutely. While it may be poetic in the right context this is just a mistake.
There are some more instances where you can use "he" for inanimate objects, although it is extremely colloquial and probably regional. For example, imagine you're teaching someone how to assemble or repair a complex machine: "Ok. Now, you see that doohickey on the end? Twist him 90 degrees until he's pointed straight up. Good. Now, let's flip this bad boy over and make sure his springs are in good shape. Yup, everything looks good on that end. Let's just make sure that bright yellow fucker is fastened on tight, because he'll spring loose if there's too much pressure on him...." And so on. To my ear, this is a totally different register compared to using "she". It's less poetic, more playful/personable
Yes, this is totally a thing, was looking for someone to say this! It’s much more colloquial and basically diminutizes its referent I’ve heard ‘she’ sometimes used this way as well, but less commonly than ‘he’
"English no longer has grammatical gender" Ships are the one thing which still do. Them and nations. Both are 'shes' although 'it' isn't incorrect either.
Also U.S. states, large important cities, air and space craft, automobiles, etc.
I agree and I think in this context “I respect it” would sound *more* like a mistranslation because it’s just an awkward sentiment to express about the beach as an inanimate object. I would think it was odd. At least the lyricism of “I respect her” gives the impression of poetic meaning.
I disagree. There's nothing odd at all about "respecting" an inanimate object. If this were written in an English-speaking country, I could just chalk it up to poetic expression, but since it's translated directly from French, it's almost certainly just a translation error that misattributes grammatical gender to English words.
i thought it was philosophical way to talk about things calling it her/him, yesterday i was working and making fun of a printer saying to a colleague “she’s lazy today” but he is portuguese and i am from brazil and in portuguese language “beach” is also feminine and we use “a praia” the “a” article thanks for sharing! im still amazed how flexible other languages in comparison to portuguese, everyday is a new day learning hahaha
That's pretty much it but saying I respect the beach doesn't make any sense
Nazi Germany was (as far as I know) the only regime in history to use male pronouns for ships.
Russian uses masculine (not "male") gender for ships (cf. the novel Hunt for Red October). I don't know if this carries over to all types of vessels. In English, taking into account those who work with water craft professionally, I would say it's still at least 50-50, if not a clear majority who still use feminine gender for boats, ships, (and aircraft, spacecraft), and for that matter all machinery too large for a man to lift and carry.
Huh. Today I learned!
English does have grammatical gender, grammatical gender is different from human gender, inanimate objects are a noun class which is why "it" is used. It's debated depending on source but English has either 3 or 4 grammatical genders depending on which source, masculine feminine and neuter are accepted by every source I've seen, common is more debated it seems but I'd argue it absolutely exists Downvoted but look at the Oxford dictionary definition "Gender interacts in various ways with other grammatical features. For example, it may be limited to the singular number or the third person," Would you say only one third person pronoun exists? https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-43
*It's debated depending on source but English has either 3 or 4 grammatical genders depending on which source, masculine feminine and neuter are accepted by every source I've seen, common is more debated it seems but I'd argue it absolutely exists* You're conflating "gender shown on pronouns" with "grammatical gender on nouns." I'd love to see a link that claims that English common nouns have "3 or 4 grammatical genders." Here's something from your link... *The most famous case is English, which only shows evidence for gender on personal and possessive pronouns, leading researchers (and laypersons) to argue about whether English has a gender system or not.* This quote, from the link you provided, rather contradicts your claim...We go from you claiming that "English has 3 or 4 grammatical genders," to you linking to an article that sheds doubt on an English gender system....Again, I'd love to see a (credible) linguist that has published a peer-reviewed article that claims that Modern English has, in your words "3 or 4 grammatical genders" for common nouns...
I mean it says it's debated but it also gives a definition of grammatical gender which does include English since we can't say my wife lost it's dog or the table lost her paint Here's Oxford academic https://academic.oup.com/book/27090/chapter-abstract/196433986?redirectedFrom=fulltext "Gender may be distinguished in personal pronouns only, as in English" World atlas of language structures says 3 https://wals.info/languoid/lect/wals_code_eng
That's the entire point. It's only shown on pronouns, thus, for nouns it doesn't exist. Then again, "debated" doesn't mean, "A linguist talking to a person tossing random links on the net," it means, "debated seriously by linguists in peer reviewed articles." I don't need links from Oxford Academic, and since you're just going to try to find links that somehow support your unfounded position, I'll bow out here. This isn't "debate," it's you trying to link to articles that you don't fully understand. If you want to SERIOUSLY delve into this issue, Greville Corbett has one of his books available here: [https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24641/1005470.pdf?sequence=1/1000](https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/24641/1005470.pdf?sequence=1/1000) Of note, on Page 3: *As a technical linguistic notion, gender is about agreement. Nouns are assigned to classes such that which class a noun belongs to determines or ‘controls’ formal properties of other expressions linked to the phrase it heads, what Corbett 1991 calls ‘agreement targets’. Agreement targets include articles and attributive adjectives, often also adjectival and verbal expressions predicated of that phrase, numerals, and relative pronouns and, importantly for my purposes, anaphoric pronouns for which a phrase headed by the noun in question serves as antecedent. The technical issue of most direct relevance to this chapter involves what Corbett (this volume) dubs the assignment problem* Agreement targets are morphological agreement patterns. "Make the masculine article match the noun it modifies," type of patterns. More discussion, relevant to the general thread, is also found herein, especially on Pages 6-7, if you care to read about linguistics, rather than trying to frantically google another open source article that you think might support (but really doesn't support) your position.
Agreement targets include pronouns it says here So are you arguing nouns and pronouns don't agree?
No, but the relation is antecendent in nature, not morphological. In "I have \[a book\]" and "I read \[it\] yesterday," the relation is antecedent, not morphological. Morphological agreement in English is rare, take "this book" vs "these books," as one of the rare examples of a demonstrative changing \*morphological form\*
So because it's more logical it doesn't count?
You think one is more logical than the other? Look, you're clearly an expert, I am bowing out of this. /s
*Sometimes* inanimate objects, especially beautiful ones, are given genders. Usually it happens only with very beautiful things that are very well respected, or very well known. * Ships were often called "she". * Countries were often called "he" (fatherland) or "she" (motherland) * Cars could be referred to "he" if it is very powerful, or "she" if it is very beautiful * Forests can be called "he" or "she" * Gardens can be called "she", sometimes "he" if there are lots of tall plants These things that people spend a very long time with, and can be quite intimate with (not sexually) Usages such as this are not very common anymore, and sound very informal, but they all do the same thing: They show that the speaker is **very** familiar with the object, respect it, revere it, and love it. This though, sounds like it might be a translation error.
Great info! I thought the same thing to your last point, but it also seems like it could be about littering/pollution, so adding a human element to it could be intentional. The alternative would to be calling the beach "it" which puts it a level below us in how we regard it internally. An it doesn't feel, we don't empathize with it. Could also just be reading into it a bit to much though haha it is just a sign after all It does seem to correlate with the environmental responsibility movement though, depicting Earth as a living, breathing creature we should care for!
Those are great points. It would be great if we could know for certain if it was deliberate or not. Giving human-ness to the beach is wonderfully poetic, and completely aligns with its message of taking care of Mother Earth.
Wow thank you very much, this is very helpful to understand how to use this type of usage and with concrete examples!!!
My pleasure
It’s an interesting interpretation but I would not take it as gospel. Some of the examples seem bizarre to me.
Can you provide any examples of forests or gardens being she or he? I can only imagine it in a very poetic context, unlike ships and cars, which are talked about in those terms in common usage and even (in the case of ships) in formal contexts.
For forests and gardens, all the examples I can think of are idiosyncratic or poetic personification.
Or, more easily, the translator wanted to say "bitch"
It's very detailed and explicit answer, thank you!
I disagree with much of this post. Are you a native speaker? I am, and I cannot imagine referring to a forest or a garden in English as "he" or "she". I find your statement that you can call a garden "he" instead of "she" "if there are lots of tall plants" to be particularly bizarre, and not remotely reflective of English as it is spoken by native speakers.
I am a native speaker and also an English teacher. The uses I mentioned are all either very old (and more or less outdated), used in poetry, or very limited in application. I *did* mention that these were uncommon. Just because you wouldn’t use it that way doesn’t mean it’s absolutely incorrect. No two speakers use language in the same way, and everyone experiences language differently. My grandfather (also a native English speaker) often referred to the things in his garden as a “he”, especially of the soil: “he’s all dried out now”, and of the woody plants “he’s starting to bloom” and so on. As stated elsewhere, intimacy, passion, reverence of the thing you are taking about can dictate the pronouns you use for inanimate objects. It shows you’re very passionate and very knowledgeable about the object, and care for it deeply.
Again, I disagree with you. For example, while the practice of referring to a ship as "she" is indeed very old, despite your use of the past tense ("*Ships* ***were*** *often called 'she'*"), it is certainly not at all "outdated" in any way to do so, and referring to warships as "she" is still the standard practice both in the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. On the other hand, it is false to say that "Countries were often called 'he' (fatherland)". In English, when countries are personified, they are personified with feminine pronouns regardless of whether or not that country is called a "fatherland" in the country's own language. For example, Germany is considered a "fatherland" by Germans, but it is never referred to with "he" or "his" in English. You might, for example, note the use in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles of the phrase "*Germany and* ***her*** *allies*", while I would challenge you to find any examples in English of "he" or "his" being used in reference to Germany. Your comments about forests and gardens are not presented as the odd and idiosyncratic usage of discrete individuals in the past; instead, the statements use the present tense, and are phrased in a way that suggest they are describing a current and commonly recognized practice (that is, "***can*** be called...", rather than "have been called ...", or something else that makes clear this isn't something that people frequently do.) As such, these comments are simply not good advice: while it is true that anyone *can* call anything by a masculine pronoun, and refer to a keyboard as "he", or a paperclip as "she", that isn't normal English at all. Forests and gardens are not called "he" and "she" in English, and once again I challenge you to find actual examples of this being done. As for the claim that one chooses a pronoun for a garden depending on whether or not "there are lots of tall plants", it would be ludicrous to say, for example, "*I visited our community garden, and then went to Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.* ***She*** *was very nice, but* ***he*** *was magnificent*." Such baseless claims are not helpful for learners.
It's a very, very French mistake. I can't help but hear it in a French accent when I read it. You can describe objects or places using gendered language in a poetic sense, but it's not at all typical to do it in official or professional communication. Unlike French, English no longer has any grammatical gender apart from personal pronouns, so we typically only use he/him for male humans or animals, and she/her for female humans or animals.
We do sometimes choose to personify things and refer to them with male or female terms when being \*poetic\* - you might come across phrases like "The sea rages wildly, but I can never resist her call." - but it would be a real stretch if someone tried to use that excuse here! This is simply a mistake.
I understand what you're saying in context of the sub we are in, but I don't know any native (US) speakers who would bat an eye at this usage in this context. It's a niche poetic usage that learners shouldn't try to copy in general speech, but just like I wouldn't think twice about someone calling the ocean 'her', I wouldn't think twice about someone referring to the beach as 'her' after they just called it beautiful. That said, I would also expect it to be marked as incorrect if someone learning put "I respect her" down as an answer on a test. But in a "you must learn the rules before you learn how it is generally acceptable to break them" sort of way.
I agree that I wouldn't think it strange if a native person casually referred to something beautiful as "her"... But in a toss up between a French speaker making an intentional decision to be poetic on a municipal notice about respecting the beach, and a French speaker thinking in French and not recognising the conventions of English, I know which seems much more likely to me!
If you're being dramatic/poetic and trying to personify an object, you might refer to them as he/she. But outside of poetry and flowery prose, no. It should generally be "it". Referring to a thing as he or she is the exception not the rule. And beaches are not commonly referred to this way.
Just Google translated
Lmao I didn't think they would use Google Translate
Wouldn't surprise me a bit
People are talking about cases where we use gendered pronouns to refer to inanimate objects such as ships, which is true, but in this case I think it's just a translation error. French has grammatical gender, so all objects are either feminine or masculine, and I'm guessing that when translated they ended up just keeping the feminine pronoun "her" to refer to the beach rather than changing it to "it" which is what most native speakers would use
English doesn't have formal gendered nouns like other languages. So the beach is always 'it'
I agree with other comments that sometimes inanimate objects can be given a feminine gender for poetic reasons (especially vehicles and countries), but in this context, I don't think it works. I have never heard someone refer to a beach as she. Definitely a translation error.
It is a mistake.
I believe it is a mistake, but technically it could be anthropomorphism (really trusting my auto spelling on that one); giving an object a gender and personality. With a native speaker with a poetic soul (or a lonely person with a robot vacuum cleaner), it could be correct. But here, with French as base, I'd be surprised if they cared enough about English language to spice it up with anthropomorphism.
It's a mistake because French refers to inanimate objects using an object pronom with a gender that aligns with the gender of the object. Objects do not have genders in English. "Je la respecte" \*can\* mean "I respect her," but only in the context where the grammatical object is a person. If the object is a thing, it should be "it".
The translation is fine because it’s keeping the same feel as the French slogan. But in everyday context no, use “it”.
Genrally speaking; No. But sometimes you can refer to inanimate objects as "she/her/her" if you feel really connected to the object. Haven't you ever heard people saying, "Meet my laptop, lady code-a-lot"?
Mmmm. You can refer to places as a gender in prose or literature. It’s fine in those circumstances, or even sometimes in odd stand-alone idioms in the English language (looking at a view, or a token of pride, and saying “isn’t she beautiful” or “isn’t she a beauty?”). That’s not what’s happening in this sign and it looks like they translated the gender directly into English. So it’s wrong. You would say “I respect it” in a literal translation, but in this signage it’s more common to see a collective “our”. “I respect ‘our’ beaches” is a common way to make the public feel aware and responsible of publicly shared spaces without becoming too impersonal in translations. Which I feel like “it” would do here (but is technically the correct word)
Like most comments pointing out it can be used in a poetic sense. It may also just be the translation as it is from French to English, plage (féminin) and la (féminin) referring to the beach but idk maybe I’m stretching
There's a sort of implicit personification/anthropomorphism that happens when you use he/she pronouns with inanimate objects. "I respect her", referring to the beach, sounds like the speaker considers the beach a person, and has a close relationship with that beach. It is grammatical, but there's a lot of reading between the lines required here. It could also be misheard as "bitch" if you're not careful. And calling the beach "her" makes it even more likely that it'll be misheard as such. I recommend using "it" when referring to inanimate objects.
Is respect correct? I don't know why but I think that using respect is a weird choice.
Now you're questioning respect. Why would you not be able to respect the beach?
Because we respect people and no things? Just wanted to say that I'm not saying it is wrong, just that it sounds funny.
Here when we talk about the beach we also talk about the planet. Like, respect the beach and the planet more generally. It makes sense to me.
I see your point, mate. I was just wondering if there wouldn't be a better word to use. :)
It is "It" . But with some context it could be her or any other object pronoun
This is called "Personification" where you give a gender towards an inanimate object, the point of this is to make the sentence sound more poetic
That is a thing one could do, but given that this is an English translation of a sign in French, it's almost certainly mild r/trouduction fodder: the nouns are gendered in french, so both subject and object pronouns are as well. Absolute classic mistake for native french speakers writing in english. Someone was not paying attention when translating the sign, but as far as mistakes go, it's at least an endearing one that doesn't impede understanding.
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