Are cities like ships? At least, in English, are they referred to - TopicsExpress

Ian Appleby

Are cities like ships? At least, in English, are they referred to as she? I have used feminine pronouns for Rome in a story Im working on, whereas in Russian - which language does, of course, have grammatical genders - Rome (Рим) is, grammatically speaking, masculine. The author, while not displeased with my work, expresses his awe at the alchemical transformation thus wrought upon his story, in which the city is no longer identified closely with the male protagonist but, rather, with the female antagonist, and I, in turn, am struck by how much grammatical genders spill over into other channels of understanding. To return to my original question, then, I cannot identify precisely why Rome should in my mind be she and not he. I never had the Latin for the judgin, but Roma is feminine - is it a hangover from classical times? However, in that case, York and London should be masculine, and I remain to be convinced that either city is - indeed, I adduce evidence to the contrary for at least one of them. Any thoughts? youtube/watch?v=nNsCf12eyyU

Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 09:52:20 +0000

Are cities like ships? At least, in English, are they referred to - TopicsExpress

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