Talk:French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle

Gender pronouns referring to the ship
There have been a series of edits insisting on a particular gender pronoun for this ship. I have two concerns about this:


 * 1) The existing usage in the article, apparently since at least 2008 and probably much earlier, is to use the female pronoun where a pronoun is needed. The changes made ignore this, in breach of MOS:GNL which says "articles should not be changed from one style to another" without a substantial reason to do so.
 * 2) The changes made (as shown by the diff in my first sentence above) are both ungrammatical and fail to meet WP:MOS in other respects.

I would welcome other editors' thoughts on this. MPS1992 (talk) 00:39, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * If the French typically refer to ships in the feminine, we should do likewise.-- Georgia Army Vet  Contribs  Talk  02:02, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh boy, this can of worms again! Basically, as mentioned above, WP:GNL basically applies, in spirit, WP:RETAIN to this: if the article currently uses pronouns, it should remain so; if it was written without them, adding them isn't any priority whatsoever. - The Bushranger One ping only 02:07, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Gender neutral language if preferable. Especially since different cultures use different pronouns and it's increasingly falling out of use. Example Lloyd's Register of Shipping has ceased using to pronoun to refer to ships and now use it or the. Fustos (talk) 02:21, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Isn't this a form of aggressive political correctness? In this debate (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (ships as "she")) held way back in 2004, a lot of editors also thought that "it" was PC overkill. Since nothing more authorative than WP:GNL has been provided since, I don't think it's right for a small number of politically correct activists/militants/conservatives/liberals, or whatever you want to call them, to dictate that "gender neutral language" is somehow better for all and that "she" should be white washed from the site, especially as there is no overwhelming consensus, as this is probably a non-issue to most people. Since the use of pronouns is historically significant, and Lloyds is a business which has its own internal policies, its practices should not influence or determine how Wikipedia is written, just as other organisations have openly rejected their change. From The Telegraph: "Lloyd's List sinks the tradition of calling ships 'she'" (2002): "A spokesman for the Royal Navy said it would continue to refer to ships as female. 'Lloyd's List can do what it wants. The Royal Navy will continue to call its ships "she" as we always have done. It's historic and traditional,' he said." If the use of "she" is falling out of use, as User:Futos claims, where can we see the numbers, based on objective research, that prove the trend is moving from "she" to "it". Until then, let's not jump on a bandwagon of PC hysteria that hasn't been proven to exist. Further, if we dropped the "she" does that mean we can't use the term "sister ship" for things like the Titanic and Britannic? Seriously, I find political correctness does nothing more than interfere with long-standing cultural norms and hinders progression. What a dull and pedantic world it would be if we all had to think and speak in a restricted or diplomatic manner to prevent "offending" people in the slightest way. Our written and spoken languages are what makes humans more advanced than any other species on Earth, and yet there are those who want to trim it down just to appease society's snowflakes. It's a disturbing phenomenon. — Marcus(talk) 03:16, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * The MOS is quite clear on this. The existing style is female personal pronouns. It should not be changed without a talk page consensus. Which we don't have. Kendall-K1 (talk) 04:00, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I assumed the MOS had already been linked. The relevant part is WP:SHIPPRONOUNS. Kendall-K1 (talk) 04:12, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, the MOS, including WP:GNL, is quite clear that feminine pronouns are permissible in ship articles. This page isn't the place to change those guidelines. For what it's worth, there are plenty of users on WP who actively and aggressively oppose this guideline, though not disruptively on individual pages, so it will probably eventually be changed. Personally, I don't the feminine pronoun for ships solely because I view it as unencyclopedic and informal, but I oppose changing it on gender-neutral grounds. As with Marcus, I find the effort to neuter the English language offensive and misguided, and as with most things these sorts of people promote, hypocritically limited in scope to only those things that offend them. As one who has lived in the American South, I realize that some stereotypical prejudices are permitted, especially against "Rednecks" and/or Evangelical Christians, and these "progressive" prejudices are vehemently defended, even on Wikipedia. Such is modern life. - BilCat (talk) 06:51, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Going off on a tangent here, but, in order to cover all things and be a universal encyclopedia that embraces all notable human knowledge, Wikipedia must be inherently liberal, since it's a site that discusses all manner of history, politics, religions, ideaology, etc, without favouring anything over another. If people want limited views that support their own biases then there are distorted sites such as Conservapedia (which is naturally totally opposed to Wikipedia's open-world philosophy) or RationalWiki (which clearly thinks Conservapedia is for fanatical nutjobs) which do that. One only need look at their "articles" to see how extremely right-wing and left-wing they are, both prejudiced, biased and written with a pre-determined agenda in mind, as well as a mandatory registration for all because those sites have overlords who will veto edits they personally disagree with. Progressive behaviour is defended on this Wikipedia because without it the site would never be a global success, and would willingly harbour all manner of agendas and slanted articles, like those other "wikis" promote. Only a progressive site could have the full range of human demographics work on it towards one goal, whilst those who want to oppress such ideals run off to their own anti-Wiki Wikis and create pretentious op-ed themed articles full of original research, synth and extreme POVs. Political correctness is the first step towards censorship, and is a form of systematic bias in itself, because PC is used to appease those who claim to be "offended" by something they heard or read. Taking offence is a choice, not a right. Prudes are closed-minded people that harm society when they lobby for censorship laws to protect their own personal feelings (except when it's appropriate to prevent children from being exposed to potentially harmful adult-themes). The day Wikipedia adopts any guidelines which makes political correctness mandatory is the day I stop editing. Without the freedom to use the English language to its fullest extent, uninhibited but with common sense like we have now, editing would become restrictive, artificial and uninteresting. If you think "Grammar Nazis" are bad, imagine the conservative "PC Brigade" swooping down on Wikipedia to challenge every subjective "objective" term and article they wish – give someone an inch, they'll take a mile. It would be virtual-suicide for Wikipedians to allow PCness where it doesn't belong. All anyone needs is common sense, a broad vocabulary, and a little restraint when it comes to using terms that are obviously controversial. — Marcus(talk) 08:20, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Hence my use of "progressive" in quotes. Oddly, even the "grammar nazis" tend to be hypocritical, as most of them claim to be Descriptivists, not Prescriptivists, yet spend most of their time prescribing their descriptivism. To bring it back to our main point, allowing both feminine and neutral pronouns for ships on Wikipedia is Descriptive, allowing the language to be used here as it's used in real life. - BilCat (talk) 08:55, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * For me, ships are "she". Every source I've ever seen uses it. Every sailor I know of uses it. (Admittedly, that's a fairly short list. ;p ) If Lloyd's wants to change it for their own reasons, they're free to; IMO, they're wrong, but they're free to be wrong. I will continue to use "she" here (MOS be damned, if need be ;) ). I expect I will (eventually) be in the minority. So be it.  TREKphiler  any time you're ready, Uhura  09:19, 14 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Just to note, it seems only to be Lloyd's Register which is being referred to here as changing its style, not the possibly rather better known Lloyd's of London which originated from the marine insurance market in 1686. Whether it is a sign of a changing world, I don't know, but any such change is unlikely to reflect how sources refer to ships commissioned previous to it, for a very long time to come.


 * All this is somewhat perplexing, but at least we do not have it as bad as the French, where gender specificity of inanimate objects is a fundamental part of the grammar, and I suspect attempts to gender neutralize it are going to run into serious problems, not least from the older generation and experienced teachers of French as a foreign language. MPS1992 (talk) 09:45, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
 * We seem to have this same debate every six months or so. Worth quoting the relevant MOS section in full: Ships may be referred to either using feminine pronouns ("she", "her") or genderless pronouns ("it", "its"). Either usage is acceptable, but each article should be internally consistent and employ one or the other exclusively. As with all optional styles, articles should not be changed from one style to another unless there is a substantial reason to do so. (bolding added) -- Euryalus (talk) 09:45, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

endurance
the infobox states 20-25 years, the text strongly suggests 6 years. pietro151.29.86.54 (talk) 09:32, 3 November 2020 (UTC)