Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 November 1898 — He or She. [ARTICLE]

He or She.

The word “ship” is masculine in French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, and possesses no sex in Teutonic and Scandinavian. Perhaps it would not be an error to trace the custom back ,to the Greeks, who called all ships by feminine names, probably out of deference to Athene, goddess of the sea. But the sailor assigns no such reasons. The ship is to him a veritable sweetheart. She possesses a waist, collars, stays, laces, bonnet, ties, ribbon, chain, watch* es of other feminine valuables.