Monday, October 6, 2008

I'll take "Female automobile pronouns" for one hundred Alex.

Answer - The pronoun that you give to personify an automobile.
Question - What is 'she'?
____________________________________________________
Jane: "So I got a new car."
John: "O'rly? Where is it?"
Jane: "She's parked over there. Isn't she pretty?"

She? Why is it that whenever people decide to personify a vehicle, they always use the pronoun "she"? Why she? Why not something else? Why not, "Hey, there's my Billy Bob Thornton parked over there!"?

Well, if you think about it, the terms and phrases that we use to describe our interactions with cars just scream archetypal female personfication. Here are just some examples:

You always get in your car.
To get in you need to open the doors wide.
You need to slide into her seat.
You have to turn her on.
To turn her on you need to stick your key in the ignition hole.
Sometimes you need to play around with the key a little before she'll go in.
Before you start driving away you need to warm her up.
You need to slide her into gear, never force it in.
You need to ease her out of the driveway.
You need to be gentle with the clutch.
You need to watch your speed or you'll run out of gas prematurely.
If you're backing in, you need to go REALLY slow.
And even then you might not always fit into the spot.

If that's not enough evidence to prove why cars are female, here are a few more observations:

You spend a fortune on them to begin with.
You spend a fortune on them for the rest of their lives.
God help you if you get one that's high maintenance.
After a few years, they only turn on when they want to.
And my personal favorite: She'll never be as attractive as the day you first picked her up.

Here are a few tips for those looking into the car market:

Buy new if you can afford it, that way you'll know nobody else has driven her before.
If you must buy used, go with a low mileage one. Their bodies last longer.
If you can only get an older one, make sure she's been well maintained and has had some work done. Otherwise you'll have to pay for the work to be done later.

And always, always remember:

If at all possible, always lease and never buy. That way if you find that you don't like the car or you're just bored of it, you can always upgrade to a newer model or just get another car altogether. Plus, if you find yourself really attached to her, there's always an option to buy out.

And for those of you that can't afford to buy or lease, you can always rent. Sure, the car has probably been driven by a few hundred people, but for that short period of time she gets the job done.


See how there are always hot women around nice cars in pictures? Yeah, that helps too.

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