Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
she (pron.)
Some purists object to the use of feminine personal pronouns to refer to inanimate things—boats, cars, nations, universities, Mother Nature, the wind and weather, and the like. Some of these uses are jocular; others are long-established convention. In Formal language, all but the most conventional of such uses (the college as she reflects alma mater) are replaced by the neuter pronoun it, but at all Conversational levels and in Informal writing, most people find no problem with an inanimate referent for “She’s a beauty!”
