It is curious isn't it! We don't consider things such as 'storms' or 'cups' as female. We don't have the concept of gender for objects that many other languages (certainly most European ones have) so we don't need to use male or female personal pronouns for things. We do it to personify things, making them seem more human. Some things tend to be usually referred to as either male or female - for example boats are normally referred to using female pronouns - you could say 'it' and that would be fine, but using 'he' for a boat would sound odd. Likewise we usually say 'fill her up' to talk about all sorts of things to be filled up (not just cups) but there is no real reason for this as far as I know...Freud might have said there is some unconscious sexual reason for this but I don't want to speculate!!

It's an interesting question, and I'm glad to see that you are still using the wonderful Wallace and Gromit to teach you English. To answer your question - no, we don't consider cups, storms or any other inanimate objects as 'women'. The only 'things' that traditionally took feminine pronouns were boats and ships. The custom has always been to give sailing vessels women's names, and to refer to them as ''she ' and 'her', but they weren't actually seen as women - just creations that deserve affection and respect, like real women do ;). So why do Hagrid and Wallace use feminine pronouns for these objects? For a start, it's worth bearing in mind that both these characters have been given strong local accents and use slightly old-fashioned dialect forms from the regions they originate from (Lancashire in the case of Wallace and England's West Country in the case of Hagrid). This allows the writers more licence for their characters to use non-standard English. Wallace says 'Fill 'er up, lad' because 'Fill it up', as a command, might sound rude and abrupt. 'Fill 'er up, lad' , by contrast, sounds warm, friendly and informal. In the West Country dialect of England it's not unusual to use 'human' pronouns for inanimate objects, even today, so this is why it sound natural for Hagrid to refer to the storm as 'she'. According it semi-human status also indicates a certain level of fear and respect for the storm. After all, major weather systems like hurricanes have always been given people's names, haven't they? Hurricane Katrina, and so on. Until recently, they were always given women's names, too..

Hello Bunch Inanimate objects are often referred to by the female pronoun. Another typical example is calling cars 'she' or 'her' - "Isn't she running well?" (Or even 'the old girl!) I think it may be because in the past men who would work on ships would regard them as their mother - providing everything for them while they were away from home and this then transferred to other inanimate objects. Just another of our idiosyncrasies I'm afraid! If in doubt you should use 'it' for inanimate objects. Hope this helps Bob

Your examples are both British English so I can't say how common these usages would be outside the UK. Wallace is from the north of England and speaks like an older person. So this sounds like a regional variation which is a little old-fashioned. It's not common among most modern British speakers. Referring to ships, countries and weather systems as female beings gives them a little more colour. It is a literary device. It was probably more common in the past but is not common now.

Just for confirmation, we'd use these same expressions in the U.S. This is a quite interesting question, as I'm not sure why we use "her" for some inanimate things, but also I can't think of any time we'd use "him" for something inanimate.