Definite articles in ship names

In my limited (read: pop-cultural) experience, it seems like some ships (and spacecraft) take definite articles before their names, but others don’t. Compare:

Malcolm Reynolds is the captain of Serenity. (no article)

Nathan Roberts is the captain of the Sweet Judy. (article)

Is there some linguistic rule for this, or is just a case-by-case thing? Based on all the ship names I’ve run across in songs(the Diamond, the Mary Ellen Carter, etc.), it seems like using the article is more common .

All the good Star Trek shows use the definite article before the ship’s name. Kirk and Picard captained The Enterprise. And Sisko had The Defiant.

Beginning with Voyager they began the annoying habit of dropping the definite article and that was clearly the cause of the franchise’s demise.

From Wikipedia:

The British always called their awesome airplane Concorde, deliberately omitting the definite article. While the rest of the world called it The Concorde. Not sure why.

When the film Titanic came out, among the various media reports surrounding it was one claiming that back at that time, definite articles were never used with ship names. Supposedly, no one at that time said “the Titanic,” but rather just “Titanic.” Adding the article is a modern-day development.

Sort of. It depends on the grammatical context. Compare:

“I am captain of the Enterprise.”
“These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise.” (No attached “the”…)

The second one could have been “…voyages of the starship The Enterprise”, but it isn’t.

:confused::confused::confused::confused:

Because the second “the” is redundant.

Without looking hard at it, my guess is that ‘the’ tends to be instinctively added in cases where it’s not clear that the following word refers to a ship. So for something like a person’s name, or an adjective, we’ll want to make it clear that we’re referring to a ship “I’m captain of The Mary Ann” or “All aboard The Lucky”. When it’s more clear that the name is in fact the name of something, we might tend not to. “Have you seen my boat, Unlimited Egotism?” I’m guessing that nouns (e.g. serenity) tend to feel more obviously referring to an object, so don’t need a ‘the’ as often.

On the other hand, I suspect pure rhythm also makes some uses sound better than others to us.

According to The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., “the carrier Enterprise” is correct but not “the USS Enterprise.” “The Enterprise” is also correct, but The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World prefers “USS Enterprise (CVN-65)” (no “the”).

In other words if the name is used with the prefix, don’t use the definite article. If the name is used without the prefix, or if the definite article is applied to an adjectival descriptor (e.g, class, type, nationality, etc.) preceding the vessel name, then the definite article is acceptable.

When I say “acceptable,” however, I mean according to these style guides. You’re doing it wrong only if the person you’re writing for holds to these guides. Most people don’t have to worry about such things and won’t notice.

The first “the” is just as unnecessary as the second. It’s a style question, not an information content question. Redundancy is not a faux pas in language.

You wouldn’t (I would wager) have any problem with the following sentence:

“I like the NBA franchise the Heat.”

which is the same construction. Without the second the it sounds weird. As a general rule, sport team names in American English have an attached “the”. This rule does not hold for the Star Trek vessel. (A harder-to-pin-down yet perfectly intuitive rule is used instead.)

Using ‘the’ before a ship name is like calling a submarine a ship. Or calling a ship a boat. Just don’t do it. For another interesting construction, don’t say “Aubrey is captain of Leopard”. Say “Aubrey is in Leopard”.

Unique inanimate objects almost always get definite articles.

The Empire State Building
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Hope Diamond
The Magna Carta

OTOH, there are exceptions, like weapons (Excalibur) or musical instruments - things that people tend to assign personalities to. Is that why ships don’t get definite articles? Because they’re people?

We did? Besides, isn’t the discussion about names of specific individual ships (and planes or whatever)? Concorde is/was the trade name of a make of airplanes.

I’ve always thought it was correct to omit the article, but as a Naval Officer, I never hear “he was on Enterprise,” I always hear “He was on the Enterprise.”

I thought it was “the 'orrible old Leopard.” complete with “the”, although I suppose that doesn’t contradict the rules listed above.

Yeah, but that was Stephen speaking. He doesn’t know a hawse pipe from a hole in the ground.

“You remember longitude Stephen, they are the lines on the map that go up and down instead of side to side”.

Right. Nobody refers to that most famous of ships as “Titanic”. It always the Titanic or HMS Titanic. And Gordon Lightfoot couldn’t be wrong when he sings of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, could he?

It’s still the Bismarck, right?

RMS Titanic, for Royal Mail Ship, a designation for vessels contracted to carry the Royal Mail. The current liner Queen Mary 2 is so designated, as is the St Helena.

Nobody says Titanic now, but they did at the time. In the movie, they always did – “We’re sailing on Titanic” or what have you – because again, that was correct style for the time but not used today. It’s just something that’s changed over the decades.