shuttup Beavis... lol
Found one on the University of Melbourne Website, you see the Aussies have more time to contemplate such matters, as most of the sources available are Australian websites...
Hats off to them!!
Read below...
What’s in a boat name?
Wednesday 4 February 2004
By Katherine Smith
Special women in the lives of fishermen are often immortalised at sea, according to University of Melbourne research investigating how commercial fishing boats are named.
University of Melbourne anthropologists have found that in addition to attesting to the relationships fishermen have with wives, girlfriends and daughters, fishers also choose names that project hoped for ‘victories’ and successes at sea.
The research establishes two distinct naming trends that work to “socialise the sea” by reproducing, on the water, either relationships or attitudes that have been formed on shore.
The findings on boat names have emerged from wider research into Victoria’s commercial fishing industry by Dr Monica Minnegal and colleagues Dr Peter Dwyer and Dr Roger Just.
They found 40 per cent of Victorian commercial fishing boats are named after people and 25 per cent have names that are categorised as “heroic-classical”, such as Neptune Warrior or Southern Hunter and signify the hopes of the fisherman for the newly named boat.
One of the more telling findings about the naming process is that boats named after people most often mediate relationships of the fishers’ own choosing, rather than inherited relationships. Names used pertain to wives, girlfriends, daughters or friends – or are composites of several names – rather than to mothers or sisters.
“This naming process seems to be deeply ingrained in the commercial fisherman’s psyche,” says Dr Minnegal, “and is not restricted to boats only, but crosses into some of their other activities.
“The name of SA tuna fisherman Tony Santic’s 2003 Melbourne Cup-winning horse, Makybe Diva, demonstrates this tendency of fishers to play with names as a way of reflecting and reinforcing relationships.”
Makybe Diva combines the names of staff in Santic’s fishing business (Maureen, Kylie, Belinda, Diana and Vanessa) and, Dr Minnegal notes, commentators said they found it a strange name for a horse, and hard to pronounce.
“It may have been a strange name for a racehorse, but it was exactly how our research shows fishers name their boats,” says Dr Minnegal.
Musta been a slow day in the office for the 'ol Dr....
now some funnies...
If all boats are named after women, when did John F. Kennedy become a female?
I asked my son "Do you know why boats & ships are named after women?"
Before I could reply he winked at me & said:
"Because they're hard to handle."
The boy is learning...
I have come to the conclusion, (and besides, i have work to do) that although the reason boats are named after women is: who knows...
if i ever get one, it'll be named "Anchor"
Shnick
