why a ship is referred to as she or her?

[anyuser]

Hi,
I'd like to ask why do you refer to a ship or the moon as she or her?
I've looked up these words in my dictionary and it says m - masculine
So wouldn't you then refer to them as he/his?

And there is also a lion m. but you refer to it as it/its.

Can any one tell me why is it so?
Is there any rule about constituting the gender of a thing/word?
I mean grammatically ;)

Thanks in advance

[Pete]

Hi,
I'd like to ask why do you refer to a ship or the moon as she or her?
I've looked up these words in my dictionary and it says m - masculine
So wouldn't you then refer to them as he/his?

And there is also a lion m. but you refer to it as it/its.

Can any one tell me why is it so?
Is there any rule about constituting the gender of a thing/word?
I mean grammatically ;)

Thanks in advance
On the question of why boats are referred to as women:

One short answer: "Tradition."
Another short answer: "No one really knows."

A famous joke:
A ship is always referred to as 'she' because it costs so much to keep one in paint and powder. by Chester William Nimitz (American Admiral in WWII)
http://quoteworld.org/quotes/9449

You can find many discussions of this question at:

> http://tinyurl.com/2honls

The moon is usually referred to as it. Using "she" is the form of poetic imagery known as "personification".

I don't know what dictionary you used, but in general English does not assign genders to inanimate objects. Dictionaries do not usually say "m" or "f" for things. Of course, many other languages have explicit genders for nouns. In Latin, all nouns were masculine, feminine, or neuter. French and Spanish classify all nouns as masculine or feminine. But English generally refers to inanimate objects as "it". If you know the actual gender of an animal, you can use he or she, but you can also use it if the gender doesn't matter in the discussion.