----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Clair" <r.clair@cox.net> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2007 7:41 PM Subject: [CR]Gender Preference ?
> .... my cat (a female shelter rescue) who watches the list with me on
> occassion, is wondering why several list members continually refer to
> bicycles in the "she" sense. some sort of ... well you get the point.
My cat, a female foster home rescue, is utterly amazed you are perplexed, Robert! Men (and I suspect women, too) have always inferred feminine characteristics to machines from ships to cars to yes bicycles from the get-go. You've obviously never gone to sea. Or seen the classic film "The Train" where France's marvelous character actor Michel Simon, playing the engineer, tells a young helper "A locomotive is just like a woman, if you don't treat her right, she'll make your life miserable." Kipling began a poem "The liner, she's a lady."
Of course bicycles, especially classic lightweights, are "she's". Who wants to collect "its", inanimate hunks of steel and alloy? Let alone ride them. The cool thing about cycling is that melding of men (and women) and machine. Every bike is different, has a different personality. A distinct ride. A personality if you will. If they didn't, why would will have dozens of them?
Now you might very well think the very fact that nauseating PC-ism makes referring to things as "she" reprobate is sufficient reason to continue to do so at every given opportunity, but I couldn't possibly comment.
Peter Kohler
Washington DC USA