"Female" ships?

[Jessica]

I've always known that ships have names (duh) and they are referred to by "she". I don't really know why they are called "she" and not "it" or "he".
Can someone explain how come?

[CrOtALiTo]

I'm sorry, you are asking above the word ship, my question is the word ship mean Barco, because I have doubt refer above the ship, and you are saying that a ship is in Female and not male, if I'm in the correct, then let me telling you, the word ship is in gender female, good I'm in a mistakes well, could you explain me more above it.

[Jessica]

no not the word in general I mean the name and we call it "her"
not the word in spanish if it's masculine or feminine

[Rusty]

First of all, English doesn't have grammatical gender of any sort. However, countries, ships, cars (and several other machines) are often referred to as 'she'. But there is no rule that says they have to be so designated. You can use 'it', as well. There are also inanimate nouns called 'he', but again this is just out of cultural, poetic, or traditional rationale. We can arbitrarily assign 'gender' to just about anything if we want. And we can refer to the same thing as 'it' in the next sentence.

[Jessica]

ok thanks for explaining

[CrOtALiTo]

I got it, but What does Ship mean?

[Jessica]

ship, like a boat, but ships are bigger....

[CrOtALiTo]

Thank you.

[Jessica]

you're welcome :)