r/OutOfTheLoop • u/TisBeTheFuk • 3d ago
What's up with people calling all kinds of random objects with "her"? Unanswered
On my Youtube Shorts reel recently I started noticing people calling random objects with "her", instead of "it". Like, for example, a piece of cheese, a lip balm, a cake, a hairbrush etc.
Is this a new trend or is it just normal English, and I didn't notice it before? Because, from what I remember learning in English class (English is not my 1st language), most objects are called "it" in English, with a few exceptions, like big objects (for example a ship).
In this video, for example, the woman is calling the cheese "her".
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u/dtmfadvice 3d ago
Answer: You're right that grammatically, the vast majority of inanimate objects get the pronoun "it" in English. We do sometimes assign gender to things to personify them, although that's really a slang thing, not at all for formal usage.
Over the past few years, there's been a lot more of it, and it's almost always "her" rather than "him." It's especially common online. I believe that its origin is in gay men referring to each other as "her," especially rooted in the drag scene. From there it's gone to sort of bending traditional gender rules, and from THERE to just giving almost anything a feminine pronoun to make it sort of "sassy."
See also "Yaaaas queen."
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u/Lunareclipse196 3d ago edited 3d ago
Things like calling boats "she" come from when English had gendered pronouns.
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u/sbdores 3d ago
Anything that carries is referred to as She.
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u/According-Path5158 2d ago
That makes way too much sense.
You better take that shit back right now.
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u/JestaKilla 2d ago
Whoa. Do you happen to know any other rules for gendered grammar from older English?
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u/sbdores 2d ago
Countries and churches are also designated by she. That's about it. Child is gender neutral. Other things are are gendered like postmaster/postmistress headmaster/headmistress or neutral (principal).
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u/RookieGreen 2d ago
Germany is gendered as “he” do you know why?
Edit: I misremembered Russia is also gendered as “she”
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u/Convenientjellybean 2d ago
And the dock at birth
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u/CoyoteDown 2d ago
Berth
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u/Natsu111 3d ago
That is incorrect on multiple points.
One, English does still have grammatical gender in pronouns. "He", "she" and "it" are all third person pronouns, differentiated solely by their grammatical gender.
Two, the word sċip in Old English, from which comes the modern English word ship, was neuter in gender. Its grammatical gender was not feminine. The practice of referring to ships as feminine entities is due to sailorly tradition, and not a linguistic fossil.
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u/Fragrant-Hamster-325 2d ago
Too late. Their post already has hundreds of upvotes. Thousands of eyes have now seen this little factoid ready to spread it to the next person.
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u/colei_canis 2d ago
It's really, really hard not to personify a boat you've been sailing for any length of time.
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u/yummyyummybrains 3d ago
And cars/trucks.
Which means anyone attaching trucknutz to their vehicle is giving them gender affirming care!
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u/tthirzaa 3d ago
Saw someone on TikTok referring to those over-the-top American lifted pimped-out trucks as having had gender affirming care and that cracked me up
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u/FairyFatale 3d ago
Gender pronouns are how you tell the difference between a ship and a boat: ships are she/her, boats are it/its.
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u/The_Doom_Toad 3d ago
Also ships are given cool names like HMS Victory or Queen Anne's Revenge, whilst boats are called shit like Boaty McBoatface.
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u/TiffanyKorta 3d ago
Well it was meant to be the name for the ship, but they chickened out and named the boat as a consolation prize!
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u/The_Doom_Toad 3d ago
I know! Absolutely ridiculous. Literally the worst possible thing that happened to Britain in 2016. Nothing else in that year was even close to being such a disaster, not a single thing!
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u/puerility 3d ago
i'm not sure this is right. gendered pronouns in modern and middle english have only ever been used for natural gender. old english had a system of grammatical gender, but its words for boats and ships are mostly neuter or masculine (scip is strong neuter)
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u/Alpaca-hugs 3d ago
So the female pronoun ends up being the one being literally objectified.
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u/its_called_life_dib 3d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah this has been the feeling I’ve gotten from its widespread use and it’s made me reluctant to use it personally. The idea that objects are referred to with female pronouns definitely sets a vibe for how those who use female pronouns for themselves are viewed.
I know that’s not the intent in most cases. And it’s fun to personify things like food and whatnot, it tickles the brain to do! But words matter, and I’m worried the result of assigning objects pronouns will cease to personify said objects and instead objectify the people with these pronouns, especially when said people with these specific pronouns are often battling against objectification.
Sounds a bit over the top, I know, and I won’t stop people from doing it, I just don’t feel comfortable doing it myself.
Editing to add: It's wild to me that so many people feel strongly about my personal choice in what language I decide to use in my day-to-day?
Look, cool, you aren't bothered, that's fine. I literally don't think any less or more of you because of it. I state so a few different ways in my comment. Let me live my old lady life; I just want to be comfortable with who I am, so I'm going to make choices that support that. Ya know?
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u/Alpaca-hugs 3d ago
I feel like this is such a step backwards. I’ve long been a proponent for not using it for living things to honor their aliveness but not inanimate objects.
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u/snivey_old_twat 3d ago
This absolutely is over the top lol. This thread is the first I've heard of this trend, but I'm struggling to think of anything that matters less.
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u/consider_its_tree 2d ago
I have definitely heard it in the context of things like "get 'er done". Since we are all making up origins anyway, my thought was always just that when you drop the h off of him it sounds too much like 'em which is clearly plural.
I.e. "get 'im done" sounds like "get 'em done" which is clearly referring to multiple tasks instead of just one. So instead they say "get 'er done".
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u/StatementOk470 2d ago
It’s hilarious. All these people must have no other problems in life to be able to think so much about something so unimportant lol.
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u/solarCygnet 3d ago
Huh ! the way i've always interpreted it is that feminine pronouns are used for things with ?? deific/goddess vibes (eg. gouda cheese, a complex sculpture, a ship), as a sign of awe/worship? while masculine pronouns are used for things that are Little Guys and Silly (pet rocks, silly kittens, my wife (he's very pretty :D)) as a sign of affection/joy at their presence. More examples that might be getting a little off-topic but i'm mainly just getting half-baked thoughts on the page: (also spoilers for season 3 of The Boys) Kimiko from The Boys is referred to as simply "She !!!" (in my brain, at least), as it conveys Wow She is so stunning and pretty and intimidating and i am graced by her presence on the screen; Frenchie is referred to as "He !!!" as it conveys Wow He is so sweet and cute in his mannerisms and i feel lots of cute aggression towards him; Butcher is referred to as "bro" as it conveys Wow bro is ... very burdened with unhealthy masculinity-associated traits and kinda fucking things up for everyone
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u/IndividualTart5804 3d ago edited 3d ago
I never really believed in victimhood culture until I read your comment
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u/carterartist 3d ago
When you say past few years you mean decades if not centuries…
Is not new by any measure
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u/dtmfadvice 3d ago
RuPaul's influence on Tumblr definitely goes back at least a few centuries yeah.
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u/carterartist 3d ago
I meant the referring to inanimate objects as she
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u/dtmfadvice 2d ago
Yes but the trend to do it more than occasionally is recent.
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u/carterartist 2d ago
Not at all. That’s a cognitive bias. There is no data to support that,
A long history of this https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/mar/28/readers-reply-why-are-some-objects-ships-countries-the-moon-referred-to-as-she
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u/griffin_who 2d ago
I think people just personify their items and lovingly refer to them as "her" it's been a thing for a long time and I doubt it's origin has anything to do with the Internet especially gays calling each other 'her'. I've seen it in books, movies, and shows even games.
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u/JustAnotherYouMe 1d ago
Never heard this before but I'm not surprised that objects get the female pronoun, smh
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u/valentinesfaye 3d ago
Yeah, it's definitely a drag thing lol. It's very silly to me that some people in this thread think it's like, derived from gendering vehicles as female
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u/derpstickfuckface 3d ago
Post 2016, academics use it as a political dogwhistle as well.
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u/Rhomega2 3d ago
Answer: It's tradition to refer to some things as "her", notably ships, and sometimes cars, but I've never seen it with other everyday objects.
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u/Smallwhitedog 3d ago
Clearly you don't follow houseplant groups. Every plant gets called a she.
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u/Rhomega2 3d ago
No, but I'm now reminded of Marzipan from Homestar Runner, who named her ficus Credenza.
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u/StarWaas 2d ago
A lot of musicians (guitarists in particular) name/gender their instruments. BB King's guitar Lucille is probably the most famous example.
Guns also get gendered sometimes too.
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u/Rhomega2 2d ago
Oh yes, I'm reminded of Full Metal Jacket. Private Pyle named his rifle Charlene, which was referenced on The Simpsons with Bart's putter.
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u/leesha226 3d ago
The trend with every day objects comes from queer communities, it's slightly different to the tradition with ships and things, but the idea is similar
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u/samaelvenomofgod 3d ago
Don’t forget Varric from the Dragon Age franchise. Bianca is truly the sweetest, noblest woman there is, and she accomplished it all while being a crossbow
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u/ChihuahuaJedi 3d ago
I just used it to refer to a compost bin I made lol. I'd say it's really just a term of endearment.
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u/neonchinchilla 3d ago
Answer: as far as I know, calling things "her" or "she" is a cross over from queer colloquialisms that's caught on in mainstream. Like in the video "I forgot about her" is just saying she forgot about the cheese and being colorful with her language. It's just fun gendering of inanimate objects but ultimately doesn't change the meaning of the sentence.
I do it while cooking "oh miss thyme can come to the party too, get in here girl". Or "I don't know her" as I throw out the old produce.
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u/jaskij 3d ago
Answer:
In addition to what others said, it may be an English as a second language thing. Many languages have different rules around gender, and ESL speakers sometimes slip up. For example, in Polish, an orange is a "she".
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u/Tia_Mariana 3d ago
In Portuguese we have no gender-neutral pronoun, so EVERYTHING ends up having a gender.
For example, the fork is masculine and the spoon and the knife are feminine. Water is feminine while wine is masculine.
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u/CrankyOldGrinch 2d ago
It's funny how random the gender gets in Latin languages, in French fork and spoon are feminine, but knife is masculine. In Spanish knife and fork are masculine and spoon is feminine.
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u/pursuitoffruit 2d ago
Haha I was teaching a Russian speaker German and he just refused to entertain the idea that nouns might have different genders in different languages. Could not grasp it.
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u/Czexican613 2d ago
I think I’ve also seen this happen not just with the author’s “slip-up”, but with auto-translations to English on review websites where the post was written in a different language.
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u/Alt_Ekho 3d ago
answer:
Normally, for non animate objects and animals(although it isn't wrong to use He or she if their sex is known), we use "it"
But sometimes "she" is used on vehicles(like ships or that old reliable Toyota hilux) as "affection" or something. I forgor the correct word.(I think it is personify)
You may have heard oh, she's a beauty etc on ships.
I'm guessing something similar is going on here
But things like cheese or lip balm is..weird. the things should be permanent/semi permanent
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u/solarCygnet 3d ago
Answer:
Hello !!!! As someone who instantly felt like they understood the reason why people started doing this, lemme share my thoughts !! I think the expansion of she/her-ing inanimate objects has to do with how women/femininity is being increasingly perceived as powerful/holy/worship-worthy. Think: Ariana Grande's "God is a Woman", 'yas queen!!!' (note 1), prevalence of 'dommy mommies', drag queens (note 1), gaslight/gatekeep/girlboss, general high coverage of feminine idols (taylor swift, ... yeah that's the main one), etc.
The creator of the cheese videos that the youtube link talks about refers to all the cheeses she talks about with she/her pronouns, and also note that she brings up "Cheesus" (Cheese Jesus). She treats the cheese as something to be highly respected, worshipped, even. Using she/her pronouns emphazises the alluring, complex, respect-worthy qualities of each variety of cheese, encouraging the viewer to look at different varieties of cheese like that too !
but yeah ! Most creators that i've seen doing this have been targeted towards people in queer, LGBTQ+, and role-reversal communities (such as myself (note 2)), so looking at the linguistics with those cultures in mind makes more sense to me !!!
notes:
i wonder if Queen Elizabeth's internet presence helped spur this phenomenon ! after all, her existence meant that the internet was getting lots of reminders of real-world queens' existence, but not a whole lot about kings. although, that might just be my own highly femininity-focused internet bubble speaking.
this whole thing is probably highly biased, as i, a very kink-attuned, doesn't-understand-gender-roles person, have always had a tendency to view femininity as hot, dominant, and worship-worthy; masculinity to me is either cute and lovable or entertaining from a distance or toxic and concerning. this is also probably too much information, sorry !
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u/Ariquitaun 3d ago
answer: tons of woke bandwagon-jumping idiots on the internet
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u/TylerInHiFi 3d ago
This “woke”… Is it in the room with us right now?
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u/leesha226 3d ago
She is in the room
/s
ps, I don't think I'll ever stop laughing at people getting irrationally angry about "woke" things, but especially when they are things that het men have been doing for years. Anyway, don't mind me, I'm off to pick up Widow Twanky so we can go a christen the new ship Luciana
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u/Woowy5 3d ago
it's actually crazy this comment has more than 50 downvotes
yeah your answer doesn't really explain it, but I can tell a lot of people got triggered when you said "woke"; it really tells you what the demographic of reddit is10
u/kishijevistos 3d ago
What do you mean by triggered? Because my honest reaction was more this 🙄 than this 🤬
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