Anthropomorphizing Cameras - Do you find it odd?

M

M. Valdemar

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Sometimes I'll read an ad for a camera or lens where the seller will describe it as a "she".

"I bought her a few years ago and she has only had a couple of rolls through her".

Others refer to all their equipment as female.

99% of the time the camera is referred to as a female. One rarely hears of anyone referring to a camera as a "he".

Women will rarely anthropomorphize their inanimate possessions.

Do you refer to your cameras as a human gender? Why?

How about cars, guns or other hobbyist possessions?

I find it a bit odd and disquieting when others do it. Does anyone find it strange or is this generally accepted?
 
Odd... it is VERY odd. Almost as odd as the dumb@ss in the office next to mine who walks in and loudly exclaimes"Good Morning, Girls" as he boots his two computers.
 
Yes. It's odd.

I don't name my cars, guns, cameras or anything else. If I had a boat I might name it +after+ someone, and that name would probably be gender specific.

But then, I remember that I'm just weird. I don't title photos either.
 
I don't do it, but I don't find referring to cameras as 'she' odd, either. It's not really a term of affection, but almost of acknowledgment of a satisfying relationship. You rarely here someone refer to a camera, boat, or car, or whatever, as 'she' if it has failed them somehow. Usually, it's "IT'S a piece of cr@p!"


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Good point, RayPA.

I wonder how our users who speak romance languages fluently view this phenomenon, since most nouns have gender?
 
M. Valdemar said:
Women will rarely anthropomorphize their inanimate possessions.
Click to expand...

You need to ask around a bit and find out how many women name their cars, for example.

And for what it's worth, gender is not restricted to humans. Dogs, cats, basically all mammals, birds, fish, lizards, even some plants have genders. It's not anthropomorphizing to simply assign gender.

Assigning emotions such as grief, excitement, anticipation, fear, etc. are typically considered human emotions, and are characteristic of "anthropomorphizing." (we'll ignore the fact that animals of all kinds display fear, anger, excitement, etc. :) )

Humans have a tendency to assign gender to inanimate objects all the time, from ships to planes to cars to cameras. I think it's just a display of affection or importance - the object in question is important to one's survival, enjoyment, or livelihood, and mechanical things can be unpredictable as living things, therefore they can be gendered, too :) Most things we hold as significant to our lives are living beings with genders, so it seems natural to assign a gender to ALL things we hold dear.
 
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Don't assign names or gender to my cameras, but while I was still young and...er... adventurous, I called my cars "Rocinante"...It'll make sense to some...

Don
 
I think it makes more sense to assign camera brands to people. C'mon, you probably know someone who is something of a Leica, and someone else who is more of a Minolta.
 
David Goldfarb said:
I think it makes more sense to assign camera brands to people. C'mon, you probably know someone who is something of a Leica, and someone else who is more of a Minolta.
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And rather a few Holgas as well.

...Mike
 
In Spanish (my native language), and also in French, German and Portuguese, objects have a grammatical gender. Heck, in German, a child is replaced by the equivalent of the English pronoun it. So, attributing a gender to a camera isn't all that weird or unnatural. Even in English, objects have a gender and it's neutral. Usually, you see these things come up as "direct object pronouns" (I saw it vs. I saw her, for instance).

I must admit, however, being surprised at hearing or reading English sentences in which ships were referred to as "she", but then, in Spanish, they're él.

Now, what men and women do... is strange. A female friend of mine used to ride a motorcycle called "Fabrizio", while my own wife refers to our car as "Beba." To me, either Leica or Nikon, cameras tend to have a grammatical feminine gender (la cámara), and therefore I see them as... friendly objects only! :)
 
When i first saw the title of this thread, I assumed it was referring to something akin to my avatar. :D

As for naming/genderifying cameras, my current camera has a gal's name, but my previous one had a guy's name. In fact, most of the names I've given my posessions have been masculine (every computer I've owned, my ipod, etc.)
 
As I am from Austria my cameras are feminine...once had a slip of tong when I said "hear" to a Moskva the repairman handed it/her back to me smiling mischieviously "Here's your bride".......So that ones the bride and my 35 RC is sometimes "the geisha"
 
My cameras dont have a gender, because estonian language doesnt have gender specific words. Though I sometimes call my cameras "ta" or "tema", which is only used for living beings. But when speaking (writing) english, then I sometimes refer to them as she.
 
In Slavic languages, nouns ending with "a" are usually of female gender, nouns ending with consonant are of male gender.

That's why Leica, Holga, Diana, Corina, Mamiya are females,
Zeiss Ikon, Canon, Nikon, Hasselblad, Pentax, Rolleiflex, Flexaret, Kiev, Lubitel are males.
LOMO (ending with "o") has no gender and gender of Petri and Fuji is uncertain :)

But I've already heard few feminized male camera names:
Flexareta, Linhofka
 
David Goldfarb said:
I think it makes more sense to assign camera brands to people. C'mon, you probably know someone who is something of a Leica, and someone else who is more of a Minolta.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the Vivatars on the freeway....

Bob
 
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