[General] All nouns masculine but the queen?

Was really hoping to get some help here.

In some book, may have been linguistics, may have been a book with just random facts, I remember reading that the U.K. parliament passed a law to simplify the English Language a long time ago. One of the ways to simplify the language was by removing female and neutral definite article, making all nouns masculine. However, the parliament did realise a serious issue ,while boat, woman and anything else can be masculine, the queen can not be, so they made a specific exception that the queen is female. Making this the only female noun in the English language, it makes no difference to he english language or how it is spoken, but it is legally recognised that it is female.

Please note, my memory is not the best at the best of time, and grammar has always been one of my achilles heals.
What I am trying to do is find if there is any truth to this story, or if this is just a case of me not being careful when selecting my sources.

Welcome to the forum, vrghost. There is no truth in the story at all.

5jj said:

Welcome to the forum, vrghost. There is no truth in the story at all.

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Thank you very much, even if it hurts me to realise that I was completely of.

Did the parliament ever make a decision to reduce the number of definite articles, or have it always been that English only ever had one "the" and avoided the whole "der, die das" issue?

The British parliament does not legislate about language.

Early English had more forms of the articles, but they disappeared long ago.

vrghost said:

a serious issue ,while boat, woman and anything else can be masculine,

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This didn't seem odd to you? That the queen alone among women would be "legally" female?

Assuming this had ever happened (though you now know it did not), it would have happened a long time ago when religion and politics were intertwined. I'm pretty sure they would have carved out an exception for Mary, the mother of Jesus, as well. And think of the chaos when women, now legally male, asserted they deserved the same rights as men. You would have had eldest daughters inheriting estates, women owning property. Dear God - women VOTING! It would have been horrible.)


Ships are also usually referred to as "she" intead of "it," by the way. You may not have come across this yet, but it's very common.

But don't worry. We all have our share of "facts" that we have memorized and find out somewhere along the way that they simply are not true.

Interestingly(?), Queen Elizabeth of England is known in the Channel Islands as 'the Duke (a male title) of Normandy'. Duke of Normandy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Queen is also the Duke of Lancaster, and at many formal gatherings in Lancashire and Lancastrian regiments the loyal toast is 'The Queen, Duke of Lancaster'.


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And to make things even more complicated...
I think that the Queen of England (as is the case in The Netherlands, only now we have a king) refers to herself as: We, the Queen of England.

PeterValk said:

And to make things even more complicated...
I think that the Queen of England (as is the case in The Netherlands, only now we have a king) refers to herself as: We, the Queen of England.

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Not these days.

Almost forgot again: I am not a teacher nor a native English speaker, so please be gentle.

Why not? Pray tell!
(I am also not British and do not follow any news about the British monarchy)

PeterValk said:

Why not? Pray tell!

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Perhaps because Liz would have felt a bit silly saying "Our husband and we ..."

Maybe I'm a bit out of touch with the ways of the modern British monarchy.
Which is not surprising because I'm not British and have never been.
But I do seem to recall reading somewhere that the Queen used to refer to herself that way. (the "majestic plural" as it is called)
But no more?

Queen Victoria (d. 1901) was the last to use the 'royal we'.

I believe that it is still used today in such things as royal charters, but Liz doesn't use it of herself otherwise.

vrghost said:

Was really hoping to get some help here.

In some book, may have been linguistics, may have been a book with just random facts, I remember reading that the U.K. parliament passed a law to simplify the English Language a long time ago. One of the ways to simplify the language was by removing female and neutral definite article, making all nouns masculine. However, the parliament did realise a serious issue ,while boat, woman and anything else can be masculine, the queen can not be, so they made a specific exception that the queen is female. Making this the only female noun in the English language, it makes no difference to he english language or how it is spoken, but it is legally recognised that it is female.

Please note, my memory is not the best at the best of time, and grammar has always been one of my achilles heals.
What I am trying to do is find if there is any truth to this story, or if this is just a case of me not being careful when selecting my sources.

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Logically, if they were going to this trouble, they'd probably include princess. Fortunately, it's not the case.

vrghost said:

and grammar has always been one of my achilles heals.

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Achilles' Heel - and most people only have one.

Queen Victoria is dead?
Now I know I'm really out of touch with the world...

...and I don't think Her Majesty would refer to herself as the Queen of England. She is the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
We Scots are a bit touchy about the whole of UK being referred to as "England".
In the same vein: long, long ago, when I was a small boy, all schoolchildren were given medallions to commemorate Queen Elizabeth's coronation in 1953. I remember us all scratching out part of the "Queen Elizabeth II" on the medallion, so that it read "Queen Elizabeth I" to mark the fact that she is the actually the first Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The original English Queen Elizabeth I was queen of England (including Wales) and Ireland only - not of Scotland. We had our own king: James VI of Scotland. When Elizabeth I died in 1603, our King James VI also became James I of England and Ireland. It was known as the Union of the Crowns, followed more than 100 years later in 1707 by the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. When the present queen succeeded to the throne, it was decided to change the rules on numbering, to accommodate her being officially known as Queen Elizabeth II - much to the disgust of many Scots...

Mind you, I'd still be voting to stay united come September - if I had a vote...

She has moved into the 21st century.

Rover_KE said:

She has moved into the 21st century.

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Ia that why she considers herself, by divine right, head of state of the UK and assorted ex-colonies? Roll on the 22nd century!