When referring to a noun, when does the gender matter?



In most languages, gender plays a much more important role than in English. Nevertheless, it is possible to refer to a noun using its gender.



The ship was launched on 4 October 1853. Tayleur left Liverpool on 19 January 1854, on her maiden voyage.



How does one know that "ship" is feminine? Are there masculine nouns?



Answer



Well, gender matters with anaphors (Steve shaved him/*herself) and pronouns with antecedents, (Steve retrieved his/*her book).


The ship example is very rare in modern English, and is probably a holdover from when English had real grammatical gender (i.e., when it was more like German).


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