The idiots I see are indeed taking over the asylum

[NutLoose]

I despair

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/gender-neutral-boats-on-the-rise-as-maritime-museum-vows-to-remove-all-signs-referring-to-ships-as-she/ar-BBWdzXZ

[ZFT]

I despair

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/travel/news/gender-neutral-boats-on-the-rise-as-maritime-museum-vows-to-remove-all-signs-referring-to-ships-as-she/ar-BBWdzXZ

I too find this PC rubbish just too ridiculous

[MPN11]

I must try calling my wife 'It' and see what happens.

[Capt Kremmen]

Indeed they are !

'the Royal Navy has a long tradition of referring to its ships as 'she' and will continue to do so a spokesPERSON said '.

[BEagle]

A Royal Navy spokesman said: “The Royal Navy has a long tradition of referring to its ships as ‘she’ and will continue to do so.”

Quite right too! It's surely a term of affection?

Whoever vandalised the museum might benefit from being introduced to 'The Captain's Daughter'!

[pulse1]

We think that we have problems:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/11/inclusive-writing-france-feminism/545048/

[Tankertrashnav]

I'm in a minority who have generally referred to aircraft as "it" rather than "she", but I have absolutely no objections to "she". I think it can go a bit far, though. On the Facebook V Bomber group, some of the XH 558 groupies on there have taken to referring to it as "Our Delta Lady" which I find a bit much. As an aside, there have been several candidates for "Queen of the Skies" over the years (Canberra, Boeing 747 etc), but no kings as far as I know.

Incidentally I don't think the defaced sign should be restored - it should be left as a monument to stupidity.

[Percy Cute]

Definitely flown with a few Queens of the Skies.......

[Ascend Charlie]

Well, they are full of seamen, so they should be called "she".

However, this IS the navy, so you could call it "shim".

[NutLoose]

The RN's view

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/gender-neutral-ships-row-as-former-head-of-the-navy-says-decision-to-scrap-she-title-is-an-insult-to-generations-of-sailors/ar-BBWeWVG

[tucumseh]

You just know that some poleclimber is thinking of setting up a Sexist Historical Investigation Team to get those naval aviators who have used 'mother' or 'mum' in radio transmissions when operating off a deck. But it's ok, the defence budget will get a hike to pay for retraining.

[teeteringhead]

And the Wessex was often called "Queen Mother of the Skies".......

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Damn, Teeters beat me to it - although I thought it was the Whirlwind that took that particular accolade while the mighty(!) Wessex held sway.

[TLDNMCL]

Everyone has the right to be addressed as they wish, but getting offended at the proffered or perceived gender of an object is pure bollo**s (or should that be ovaries)? Far too many people trying far too hard to find offence. Good luck with your outrage if you live in France, Spain or other countries which ascribe gender to objects, inanimate or otherwise.😁

[Onceapilot]

Nope! The Frenchies are binning the male/female thing as well! :eek:

OAP

[TLDNMCL]

Nope! The Frenchies are binning the male/female thing as well! :eek:

OAP
That's great news - it makes my appalling attempts at the language all the more valid😁👍

[wiggy]

That's great news - it makes my appalling attempts at the language all the more valid����

Don’t hold your breath...there’s an ongoing campaign for either more flexibility or gender neutral French, especially in some areas of the language, e.g when it comes to the use of the masculine gender in many job titles, but it’s a long way off being “binned”.

[Warmtoast]

Thud and Blunder
Damn, Teeters beat me to it - although I thought it was the Whirlwind that took that particular accolade while the mighty(!) Wessex held sway.

If it's a Whirlwind here's two Queen Mothers together at Biggin Hill - April 1955.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/512x582/queen_mother_arrival_zps0zxhet6z_febe91a0ea00a71033e89236819 e22d0f50713b5.jpg

[jmelson]

Nope! The Frenchies are binning the male/female thing as well! :eek:

OAP

Oh, really HARD! They only have masculine and feminine articles. So, everything has to have SOME gender assigned. Spark plugs are feminine (la bougie) the earth is masculine (le Monde). Some of them actually make sense, but most make NO sense at all.

Jon

[pr00ne]

We are in the year 2019 and the Royal Navy has had mixed gender surface ship crews for years, and the submarine fleet is about to follow.

Why would a female onboard a ship want to call it she, why not he?

[212man]

So how would one refer to a Seaking?

[Rhino power]

So how would one refer to a Seaking?


By it's proper name of 'Sea King', I imagine...

-RP

[KiloB]

Surely a Ship has the same right to ‘self identify’ as anyone else? If you are going to be PC be PC.

[Shack37]

Originally posted by TTN
On the Facebook V Bomber group, some of the XH 558 groupies on there have taken to referring to it as "Our Delta Lady" which I find a bit much

Totally agree but I do love "The Old Grey Lady"::O

[Tankertrashnav]

Some of them actually make sense, but most make NO sense at all.

Doing my French degree at university I always had trouble remember genders. A French guy in our flat told me it was easy - to them the object seemed to take on feminine or masculine characteristics, according to its grammatical gender.

"So how can a bike be un velo or une bicyclette, or a car be un auto or une voiture?"

"Don't be difficult!"

Even worse in German and Russian. Like Latin they have neuter as well.

[denachtenmai]

Totally agree but I do love "The Old Grey Lady"

Shack, Same Same, :ok:

[Herod]

Of course ships and aircraft are "she". Lovely to look at, expensive to maintain, and if you don't treat them properly, they will make you suffer.. Love every one of them.

[BEagle]

The latest piece of PC lunacy I've encountered comes from the CAA.

Once upon a time, references were often to 'he' or 'him', with some explanatory text explaining that this also included females. That was a bit condescending, in my view, so I preferred to use 'he/she' or 'him/her'.

But that isn't good enough for the PC idiots now - who are insisting that the plural word 'they' should be used even when referring to a single person... What UTTER bolleaux is that? Presumably to keep he/she/it/don't know/don't care or some LGB GT (or whatever they call themselves these days) from being able to claim discrimination?

If the Navy wants to keep its tradition, then fine. But calling an aircraft 'she' is a bit weird - in my day it was usually 'the jet' or 'the bomber' or just 'it'. The 558 Klingons presumably refer to 'Delta Lady' after the Joe Cocker song - because no-one can surely think that a Vulcan is in any way female? 'Our' Delta Lady is particularly nauseating, especially when used by someone who hadn't contributed any funding for the aircraft's return to flight.

What next - will the 'wimmin' (Private Eye ibid) be demanding that 'The Old Man of Hoy' is renamed? Or that the 'Isle of Man' is sexist....?

https://youtu.be/sFBOQzSk14c
:rolleyes:

[RedhillPhil]

Aren't/weren't Royal Navy aircraft carriers referred to as "mother"?

[langleybaston]

Herod,

How quaintly sexist, and patronising and condescending....

A view totally from a male perspective, and dated about 1957...

What kept you?
A hint: the post which raised your blood pressure was light-hearted, banter even.
Show it your jazz hands!

[Barksdale Boy]

I agree broadly with Beagle: Vulcan crew chiefs always referred to "my bomber"; aircrew usually said "it".

There's only one thing worse than people sitting around looking for something to be angry about and that's people sitting around looking for something to be tedious about.

And while I'm about it: prOOne you are surely the archdeacon of condescension.

A last glass of New Zealand's finest calls.

[Harley Quinn]

Don't the Russians and, I think, the Germans use the masculine when referring to ships?

[Bill Macgillivray]

Does it really matter by what sex an object is referred to? Most were terms of endearment (or otherwise) and were never intended to get to this stage of (dare I say), political (?) stupidity!

Bill

[k3k3]

In German it's easiest to talk about things in plurals as all plurals are feminine, as are all words ending with -ung, -heit and -keit.

[A_Van]

Don't the Russians and, I think, the Germans use the masculine when referring to ships?

In Russian, a ship is "he" indeed, but a sub is "she". As for a more general term, like "vessel" used by civvies, it is "it".

[jindabyne]

Slightly adrift :) And the other day that idiot Vine was doing a piece about milkmen. Oops he said, we must call them milkpersons - and he was serious. FCS, has he not heard of the milklady or the milkmaid? That was the first time I had tuned in to the cretin for months - not again.

[BEagle]

The Spams, of course, took this nonsense to the extreme. The 'fighter box' became the 'fighter container' and going 'head to head' became 'locker to locker' (as in that vile Spam expression 'snot locker' for nose). Some even used 'cranium' rather than 'head'...

Was that so they didn't upset ze 'box heads'? No, it was allegedly because those words upset some wimmin.

So we told them that a word they frequently used was causing offence to our young ladies. Being Spams, they didn't realise that this was, of course, a UK wind-up. "Very sorry, what word is it that you don't want us to use?"....

"Bush!".

:E

Agree with you concerning the Jeremy Whine programme, jindabyne!

[esscee]

"Richard Cranium" was always a useful description to have at the ready. As in "d***head".

[London Eye]

The Spams, of course, took this nonsense to the extreme. The 'fighter box' became the 'fighter container' and going 'head to head' became 'locker to locker' (as in that vile Spam expression 'snot locker' for nose). Some even used 'cranium' rather than 'head'...

Was that so they didn't upset ze 'box heads'? No, it was allegedly because those words upset some wimmin.

So we told them that a word they frequently used was causing offence to our young ladies. Being Spams, they didn't realise that this was, of course, a UK wind-up. "Very sorry, what word is it that you don't want us to use?"....

"Bush!".

:E

Agree with you concerning the Jeremy Whine programme, jindabyne!

I recommend a (NSFW!) listen to Dos Gringos' "Last Song on the CD" which certainly gives a fighter pilot's view of USAF PC terminology. And "I'm a pilot" and "2's blind" because they are both uncomfortably close to the truth

[Finningley Boy]

What worries me Mr pr00ne is what way up side down we'll be in come 2059? Will we be fighting for men's rights to serve in every Branch of the Armed Forces? or something? Perhaps Humans' to be given equal rights to Robots!

Roll on the Future...?

FB

[pr00ne]

Finningley Boy,

No, hopefully we will have achieved genuine equality at long last.

Couldn't agree more, roll on the future!

[Finningley Boy]

Finningley Boy,

No, hopefully we will have achieved genuine equality at long last.

Couldn't agree more, roll on the future!

Mind you if the Extinction Oblivion people are quite correct we should all be toast by then anyway and I'll bet the Robots won't want to give us organic types the time of day. Let alone equality.

FB

[BVRAAM]

On another different, but SJW related topic: Some absolute idiot was rather upset last week about an old Vulcan pin badge, on one of the faceache groups.
It was a Vulcan bomber with the fictional character 'Gollywog' on it. I think that pin badge has been around since before that idiot was born; long before it was socially considered to be offensive.

[Capt Pit Bull]

What worries me Mr pr00ne is what way up side down we'll be in come 2059? Will we be fighting for men's rights to serve in every Branch of the Armed Forces? or something? Perhaps Humans' to be given equal rights to Robots!

Roll on the Future...?

FB

Never mind 2059. we have already reached that point.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-canadian-forces-jobs-where-only-women-need-apply

[Melchett01]

Surely a Ship has the same right to ‘self identify’ as anyone else? If you are going to be PC be PC.

Absolutely. Has anyone asked the ships what they want? They could be transgender or non-binary. Got to keep up with the programme, we’ll never win the next war if we’re confusing he’s and she’s.

And Beagle, thank you for posting that clip. Cleese’s closing line is frankly one of the funniest I’ve seen in a film and is a perfect statement about much of today’s society.

[Brian W May]

Utter PC bollocks - so will fit nicely into this hell called 'normal life in UK'.

The lunatics are truly running the asylum.

[Finningley Boy]

Never mind 2059. we have already reached that point.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-canadian-forces-jobs-where-only-women-need-apply

This is exactly what I can't accept and I make no excuse for myself, but the key point about equality is the opportunity. The opportunity is there but this is too limiting for those who would define full equality as an engineered balance. The Armed Forces, Police and Fire Services have for ever been the prime target for social reconstruction in largely Western Liberal Democracies, towit, nobody gives a stuff about how many male paramedics to female ones there are. Nor is there any anxiety in the media regarding how many women are currently involved in the crossrail project.

FB

[stilton]

Don’t the Germans refer to their ships as
‘He ?’

[vascodegama]

FB Spot on, it is the opportunity that counts. My local police force tried the Canadian model (above) a few years ago by not accepting applications from white males. That lasted until the first court case!

[LOMCEVAK]

I have to say that I am now somewhat confused and concerned. Can I still call Laser Guided Bombs LGBs? Does QFI now have a new meaning?

There is an apocryphal tale going back to when homosexuality was first accepted in UK Armed Forces. An Admiral was giving a public briefing on something or other, at the end of which a member of the press asked him how he felt about homosexuality in the navy. His reply was "Fine, so long as they don't make it compulsory!".

[Pontius Navigator]

Well the ffrench call a boat He. No sexist nonsense there. Then of course there is that insult to all masculine ffrence men - La belle France.

[Melchett01]

Still bemused by this every time I come on here and see the title in the thread list. You’d have thought with the ceaseless political quest for equality, and the opening up of combat roles to females, that this was entirely in line with the modern approach for females in combat.

The fact that opinions and arguments change seemingly with the wind tells you all you need to know about when an issue is a politically correct construct rather than a real problem.

[anson harris]

Far too many people trying far too hard to find offence

Are you being ironic? Every single person on this thread seems to be grossly offended about something that has precisely zero impact on them. Back to Mail Online everybody...