Gender in Old English and New

"Deutscher argues that the key to differences between languages is a
contained in a maxim of the linguist Roman Jakobson: "Languages
differ essentially in what they *must* convey and not in what they
*may* convey." As an example, he quotes the English statement, "I
spent last night with a neighbour", in which we may keep private
whether the person was male or female. In French there is no such
privilege: one must say "voisin" or "voisine"" -- writes Quinion:

-----

In Old English, possibly there was no choice either. They had gender for most things. Oddly, people say that there are relics of gender in New English, which are inherited from Old English,

"What a beauty she is", referring to a boat. However, 'ship' was NEUTER in Old English.