personification is very frequent: the pilot speaks of his boat as
feminine; the engineer speaks so of his engine; etc.

[Sidenote: _Effect of personification._]

In such cases the gender is marked by the pronoun, and not by the form
of the noun. But the fact that in English the distinction of gender is
confined to difference of sex makes these departures more effective.



NUMBER.


[Sidenote: _Definition._]

35. In nouns, number means the mode of indicating whether we are
speaking of one thing or of more than one.


36. Our language has two numbers,--_singular_ and _plural_. The
singular number denotes that one thing is spoken of; the plural, more
than one.


37. There are three ways of changing the singular form to the
plural:--

(1) By adding _-en_.