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Sister versus Brother

Sister versus Brother

Sister versus Brother

(OP)
I was reading a post the other day, and it caught my attention that reference was made concerning the statement "our sister company". After thinking about this, I have heard this expression used during my career. I have never heard someone mention  "our brother company".

Not sure why, but it may have to do with twin sisters as being more popular or common in usage versus twin brothers. Any comments?

RE: Sister versus Brother

Seems to me that it's geographic. Like in the USA, it's called the motherland. In Germany, it's called the fatherland (as I recall). Maybe the brother/sister thing is similar. Maybe one of our german members (if we have any) could enlighten us.

Byron T.

RE: Sister versus Brother

Seems to me that if it is an object, place or something good, it is somehow related to female. Curious, aren't some of the most deadliest hurricanes a female name? How 'bout Mother Earth?

RE: Sister versus Brother

How about "mother-board" and "daughter-board", why not father and son boards?

When talking about companies we "parent" companies (gender unspecified) but what is the offspring called?

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Sister versus Brother

"that other company"

RE: Sister versus Brother

ctopher - The reason that most of the historical hurricanes are femail is because prior to 1979, only female names were used for hurricanes.  Some of the worst (Audry, Betsy, Camille, etc) are all females.

Since 1979, they have alternated between male and female names.  Even numbered years start with a male name (Andrew, 1992), and odd numbered years begin with a female name (Allison, 2001).

Right now, the last thing that Floridians need is Ivan knocking on their doors.

RE: Sister versus Brother

yes...crazy Ivan! Florida is not the place to be lately.
Thanks CC.

RE: Sister versus Brother

I seem to recall that the female gender specific names and references that are given to objects started because mostly men were in engineering, and it was an endearing term to use.

"She purrs like a kitten."
"She's running smooth."

Ray Reynolds
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Sister versus Brother

Not specific to engineers.  

Sailors have historically referred to the ocean as a "harsh mistress."  Likewise, their ships are also female.

TTFN

RE: Sister versus Brother

We (Sweden) have "mother company", "daughter company" and "sister company". Never thought of that before. We also have "Grandmother curtains" (for windows)and "Mother´s meatballs", for more obvious reasons. Very few words with grandfather, father, son. Don,t even think that we use "Grandfather´s clock". We do have Fatherland - but Mother tongue...

RE: Sister versus Brother

About the only thing in the States I can think of with a male reference would be Dad's Old Fashion Rootbeer.

Ray Reynolds
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Sister versus Brother

or "Big Daddy"

RE: Sister versus Brother

Garlits or Roth?  We have both!

RE: Sister versus Brother

Why is it "Mother Earth", but "Father Time"?

RE: Sister versus Brother

And let's not forget Father Christmas.

RE: Sister versus Brother

Hmm, is the Easter Bunny a He or a She?

Ray Reynolds
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Sister versus Brother

Quoting from the following website:
Bonnets & Bunnies

Quote:

Easter, like Christmas, is a blend of paganism and Christianity. The word Easter is derived from Eostre (also known as Ostara), an ancient Anglo-Saxon Goddess. She symbolized the rebirth of the day at dawn and the rebirth of life in the spring. The arrival of spring was celebrated all over the world long before the religious meaning became associated with Easter. Now Easter celebrates the rebirth of Christ.
If Easter does have its roots in Eostre, an Anglo-Saxon Goddess, then I submit for complete and total shredding, that the Easter Bunny is female.

RE: Sister versus Brother

Also there are sister sites ..... (websites)

RE: Sister versus Brother

What about "grandfather rights" when an older person with lifetime skills does not have to pass a modern test (say to drive an excavator). Why not grandmother?

StephenA

RE: Sister versus Brother

"Sailors have historically referred to the ocean as a "harsh mistress."  Likewise, their ships are also female."

Except for the occasional "man o' war".

Similarly, here in the Pittsburgh region there's a media company that owns a number of radio stations. When spoken of on the air, *one* of them is specifically referred to as "our brother station". It's the one devoted to news and sports talk. It's not hard to figure out what impression they're trying to create.

RE: Sister versus Brother

But if you think about the Names on the Aircraft Carriers..
Nimitz, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, Kennedy, etc.

Would the Captain say, " The USS Chester Nimitz, She's a fine ship"?  Sounds weird.

RE: Sister versus Brother

If the Easter Bunny lays the Easter eggs, then it must be female.  If it doesn't lay the Easter eggs, there must be a lot of pissed-off hens looking for their unhatched offspring, so rudely purloined.

I think even the man-o-war vessel is still referred to as "she" though I wouldn't swear to it.  Ships are female because the men who sailed them in days of old were very nearly literally married to them, married to the lifestyle which took them away from home for years at a time.  Any kind of marriage with a woman was not likely to withstand that kind of isolation.

In many cultures, the sun is referred to as masculine and the moon as feminine.

RE: Sister versus Brother

You don't always have to be female to give birth.

Quote:

The reproduction of seahorses is truly remarkable. The male seahorse has a pouch, the marsupium,  into which the female seahorse lays her eggs. The male fertilises the eggs and cares for them for about three weeks. During this time, he aerates the pouch, and, most remarkably of all, nourishes the eggs through a capillary network in the pouch with his own "placental fluids". At the end of the "pregnancy", the male gives birth to 100-250 fully formed young seahorses of about 1cm in length.

Besides, we all knowe the Easter Bunny only lays cream-filled chocolate Cadbury eggs.

Ray Reynolds
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

RE: Sister versus Brother

so ... there really IS an Easter bunny!
Also, I noticed when someone is talking about another human (in general) he usually says he/his/him/etc. But an object is she/her/etc.

RE: Sister versus Brother

The USS Constitution is one such men of war, but is referred to as "she" in Oliver Wendell Holmes' classic poem "Old Ironsides":

http://www.bartleby.com/42/802.html

TTFN

RE: Sister versus Brother

"The Liner she's a lady, an' she never looks nor 'eeds-- The Man-o'-War's 'er 'usband an' 'e gives 'er all she needs; ... "

Rudyard Kipling



(Never mind that my less than exhaustive research turned up many more references to "men o'war" as "she" than it did "he"--this is, in fact, the only one I had the patience to find. I'll settle for a tie on the question, and let Holmes and Kipling fight it out from here. )  

RE: Sister versus Brother

Kipling, great that he might, be is an interloper.  

There were no "liners" when the man of war was extant.

TTFN

RE: Sister versus Brother

I don't read you so well IR. Fingertrouble? In my mind, men-o-war have existed for hundreds of years. And liners did exist in the 19th and 20th century.

As you know - I am not fully versed in English and English literature. So I am probably missing a fine (or coarse) point. But I cannot understand what it is?

RE: Sister versus Brother

I think that the men of war's heyday was the late 17th and early 18th centuries, e.g., Old Ironsides and Nelson's victory over the French, while passenger liners as we know them were a mid to late 18th century thing and the passenger liner as a "lady" would be more like the Titanic and QE1, which were essentially early 19th century.  Therefore, one was waning while the other was waxing, during the 18th century.

So, if there was marriage, it was essentially a figment of Kipling's imagination.

TTFN

RE: Sister versus Brother

And again, while Kipling is OK, Samuel Coleridge [1772-1834] is perhaps a better reference {Rime of the Ancient Mariner}(http://www.bartleby.com/101/549.html):

Quote:

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres!

Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman's mate?


Being the poet, and taking poetic license, Kipling refers to warships as "she" as well {The Ballad of the Clampherdown} (http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Ki...):

Quote:

It was our war-ship ~Clampherdown~
Would sweep the Channel clean,
Wherefore she kept her hatches close
When the merry Channel chops arose,
To save the bleached marine.

She had one bow-gun of a hundred ton,
And a great stern-gun beside;
They dipped their noses deep in the sea,
They racked their stays and stanchions free
In the wash of the wind-whipped tide.

TTFN

RE: Sister versus Brother

Beautiful, IR!

That's fodder for starving engineers.

I am, as said earlier, not much at home in English literature. But I can see where Lewis Carroll got the inspiration for Jabberwocky.

For me, a Liner is a ship that does something regularly on a more or less fixed route. Like the wheat liners between Australia and Europe. And Man o'war has always been the opposite of a comercial or passenger ship. Regardless of century. A misconception of mine?

RE: Sister versus Brother

Kipling's poem "If" was last year voted the British Nations favourite poem.

Anyway, my favourite sea poem was Cargoes By John Mansfield (Masefield?):

Quote:

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

Gender is not mentioned here at all. So I guess a red flag is appropriate.

However, applying my fine analytical engineers mind to the question of the Easter Bunny I conclude that the Easter Bunny is Australian.... where else would you find a rabbit thay lays eggs?

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Sister versus Brother

IRstuff said: "I think that the men of war's heyday was the late 17th and early 18th centuries, e.g., Old Ironsides and Nelson's victory over the French, while passenger liners as we know them were a mid to late 18th century thing and the passenger liner as a "lady" would be more like the Titanic and QE1, which were essentially early 19th century.  Therefore, one was waning while the other was waxing, during the 18th century."


I think perhaps the century references by IRstuff above are meant to be a century later than stated.  Does IRstuff mean late 1700s and early 1800s (as opposed to late 17th Century and early 18th Century, which would be the late 1600s and early 1700s)?  The Titanic was built in the early 20th Century, and Old Ironsides was built in the early 19th Century.  This is an easy confusion for a lot of people.

The point made is clear, however, that although these two types of vessels did overlap in use, one was diminishing as the other flourished.  Probably because of the earlier work of the military man o' war in taming the high seas, the domestic passenger liner was later able to grow, without fear of pirates or attacks by belligerent nations.

RE: Sister versus Brother

Despite John Paul Jones's efforts with the Barbary pirates at a time when France and England were in a state of almost continual war and couldn't spare the time to deal with them, piracy is a current concern.

It isn't something that happened a couple of centuries ago and is now long over. A visit to some of the marine news web sites will show that this is a very real and continuing problem. Perhaps because they don't seem to target passenger ships and Joe Public isn't often involved it isn't newsworthy? Nowadays we are more concerned with terrorist threats to shipping than pirates and this is what makes passenger liners and cruise ships a possible target. Piracy seems still to exist along shipping lanes frequented not by passenger ships or cruise ships but by tankers and freighters with small crews.

JMW
www.viscoanalyser.com
Eng-Tips: Pro bono publico, by engineers, for engineers.

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

RE: Sister versus Brother

Very true, and a good reminder.  Pirates were the terrorists of bygone days, and like you say, there are still some out there, and of course, they will generally be after the ship with the biggest return in booty.  I've heard that piracy on the high seas is actually on the increase after having been relatively non-existent for quite a while.

RE: Sister versus Brother

yes, I spazzed...  Writing stuff late at night is a bad practice...

TTFN

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