# "The" before a ship's name -- sound weird to you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 5, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134 "2006-02-05T20:06:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Doom\_Slinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Doom\_Slinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doom_Slinger)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/1 "2006-02-05T20:06:43Z")
I’ve noticed recently while watching _Battlestar Galactica_ that people usually refer to “the _Galactica_” and “the _Pegasus_,” although I think sometimes characters leave off the “the”. Conversely, I noticed while watching _Star Trek II_ yesterday that characters tended not to use the “the” (for instance, Spock noting that “_Reliant_ is closing” as they approached the nebula, or Joachim insisting “_Enterprise_ will wait! She’s not going anywhere!” The former is a (minor) pet peeve of mine. It just sounds wrong to my ear to preface a ship’s name with “the” when referring to the ship (e.g. saying “the _Titanic_” rather than simply “_Titanic_.”) Also, why is it that some ship names don’t seem to lend themselves to the use of a “the”? I don’t think anyone ever called Mal’s ship “the _Serenity_.” ---
**Author:** ![ErinPuff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dbc845/32.png) [@ErinPuff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErinPuff)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/2 "2006-02-05T20:16:13Z")
Regarding Serenity: In “Bushwhacked,” the Alliance guy doing the interrogation says “the Serenity” and Inara corrects him. ---
**Author:** ![Doom\_Slinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Doom\_Slinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doom_Slinger)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/3 "2006-02-05T20:29:07Z")
> [@ErinPuff](#): > > Regarding Serenity: In “Bushwhacked,” the Alliance guy doing the interrogation says “the Serenity” and Inara corrects him. Ah, thanks for that. And, although I’m in favor of no “the” at all, I still wonder why “the _Enterprise_” or “the _Galactica_” sounds less wrong than “the _Serenity_.” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/4 "2006-02-05T20:33:21Z")
Quite the opposite: In _Titanic_, I cringed when the scientist asks the old lady “do you want to go back to Titanic?” Nobody said “Titanic” at the time, apart from headline writers. [Contemporaneous commentary:](http://www.titanic.com/modules/articles/article.php?id=11) (my emphasis) > [@](#): > > The circumstances in which this book came to be written are as > follows. Some five weeks after the survivors from **the Titanic** landed > in New York, I was the guest at luncheon of Hon. Samuel J. Elder and > Hon. Charles T. Gallagher, both well-known lawyers in Boston. After > luncheon I was asked to relate to those present the experiences of the > survivors in leaving **the Titanic** and reaching the Carpathia. Perhaps it’s a US/UK English thing, but all ships I’ve heard referred to have been preceded either by “The” or a prefix - “RMS”, “SS”, “HMS”, “USS”, or whatever. (Note that I’m from a seafaring family.) Yachts and dinghies, however, are somewhat more anthropomorphised over here. ---
**Author:** ![Stentor\_2.5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@Stentor\_2.5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stentor_2.5)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/5 "2006-02-05T20:41:51Z")
Many ships are named after people, so we use “the” as a means of distinguishing between the ship and the person. "The crew of the Winston S. Churchill recently captured a Somali pirate ship"is much easier to understand than “The crew of Winston S. Churchill recently captured a Somali pirate ship”. The second sentence makes it sound as though A British Prime Minister has risen from the dead and now leads crews of pirate hunters. We extend the use of “the” to ship not named after people because it’s much easier to have standard conventions of speech. If you really want something to think about, ask yourself why we always refer to a ship as “she”, even when it’s named after a man. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/6 "2006-02-05T20:41:51Z")
On TNG and DS9, they always referred to _The_ Enterprise and _The_ Defiant. Then on Voyager, they started calling the ship just “Voyager” which is one of the reasons that Voyager sucks so much. They did the same thing on Enterprise. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/7 "2006-02-05T23:27:09Z")
> [@Stentor 2.5](#): > > The second sentence makes it sound as though A British Prime Minister has risen from the dead and now leads crews of pirate hunters. Of course that would be pretty darned cool. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/8 "2006-02-05T23:37:23Z")
I’m much more used to hearing “the” before a ship’s name: the Arizona, the Forrestal, the Normandie, the France, the Queen Elizabeth, the United States, the Lusitania, the Constitution, the Constellation, the Bonnehomme Richard, the Philadelphia, the Monitor, the Virginia, the Merrimack, the Maine, the Hood, the Graf Spee, the Bismark, the Tirpitz, the Summasalt, etc. “Serenity” insisted on not using “the,” but that was unusual, as indicated by the fact Inara had to correct the person who used it. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/9 "2006-02-05T23:41:46Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > Of course that would be pretty darned cool. I am officially stealing this idea for a TV show. We call call it Churchill’s Fightin’ Fury. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/10 "2006-02-05T23:55:15Z")
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, sweat, and the delicious brains of pirates.” ---
**Author:** ![Nic2004](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@Nic2004](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nic2004)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/11 "2006-02-06T00:40:07Z")
_The Wreak of **the** Edmund Fitzgerald_ ---
**Author:** ![NinjaChick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/71c47a/32.png) [@NinjaChick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinjaChick)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/12 "2006-02-06T04:40:29Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > Quite the opposite: In _Titanic_, I cringed when the scientist asks the old lady “do you want to go back to Titanic?” > > Nobody said “Titanic” at the time, apart from headline writers. [Contemporaneous commentary:](http://www.titanic.com/modules/articles/article.php?id=11) (my emphasis) Perhaps it’s a US/UK English thing, but all ships I’ve heard referred to have been preceded either by “The” or a prefix - “RMS”, “SS”, “HMS”, “USS”, or whatever. (Note that I’m from a seafaring family.) > > Yachts and dinghies, however, are somewhat more anthropomorphised over here. Hm. I’m thinking back to the last time I can remember really hearing about a boat and the only notable thing I’m coming up with is the bombing of the USS Cole. In all the reports I remember reading it was always _the_ USS Cole, not just USS Cole - the latter, to my ears, sounds very wrong. If you break it down grammatically, don’t you _need_ the article there? Any typos/incoherency is the result of having been breathing in plaster dust all day. Remember: ‘minor’ renovation work in a really old house isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/13 "2006-02-06T06:14:53Z")
Stan Rogers, who should know, always used “the” in his songs: “The _Bluenose_”, “The _Nancy_”, “The Wreck of the _Athens Queen_”, “The _Mary Ellen Carter_”… ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/14 "2006-02-06T06:17:51Z")
I’d like to see a Navy or ex-Navy person in here – **Mr. Moto** , maybe? I’ve seen military history type writing that omits the article. ISTR that in Navy docs and dispatches (and perhaps in oral communications) ships are always referred to without the article, but typically in italics where the the medium permits it. In normal civilian discourse, I almost always see or hear “the,” so it doesn’t strike me as odd at all. In fact, oral communication sounds odd to me without it. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/15 "2006-02-06T09:47:22Z")
> [@Doom Slinger](#): > > And, although I’m in favor of no “the” at all, I still wonder why “the _Enterprise_” or “the _Galactica_” sounds less wrong than “the _Serenity_.” Because ‘serenity’ is an abstract noun, and they typically, unless modified, sound odd with the article. Think of the love, the courage, and compare that with the greatest love of all. Ah…teach them well and let them lead the way, remember _all the beauty you possess inside_. There…it’s happening again. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/16 "2006-02-06T12:16:50Z")
> [@zagloba](#): > > I’d like to see a Navy or ex-Navy person in here – **Mr. Moto** , maybe? I’ve seen military history type writing that omits the article. ISTR that in Navy docs and dispatches (and perhaps in oral communications) ships are always referred to without the article, but typically in italics where the the medium permits it. This might also be because things like Navy dispatches would be composed with brevity in mind (and of course, the armed forces have their own internal rules for consistant and uniform styles in written communications). Also, at some point in the past, these dispatches would have been sent via Morse Code, so leaving out “the” before “Enterprise” would make sense in that context. Of course, on Star Trek, “The” is REQUIRED before saying “Enterprise”. Because it’s _The Enterprise_! (said with a dramatic sense of wonder, of course, as the director cuts to a beauty shot of the Enterprise flying into battle with the theme song blazing… _sigh_) On Firefly, _Serenity_ is refered to without an article for the same reason you don’t talk about The Malcolm Reynolds or The Simon Tam, it’s the name of a character (though the other characters are not necessarily concious of it most of the time). From what I can recall of my various watchings of stuff where characters were based on ships (mostly sci-fi), leaving off the “The” before a ship’s spoken name usually implies a sense of urgency to the statement: (ie: _Galactica_ is under attack!" or "We have to get her back to _Excalibur_!). ---
**Author:** ![wevets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9a140/32.png) [@wevets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wevets)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/17 "2006-02-06T17:16:00Z")
I go for “the” also. It just sounds wrong to say “I’ll be spending two weeks on _David Starr Jordan_” - grammatically, and socially, awkward. ---
**Author:** ![Sean\_Factotum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/50afbb/32.png) [@Sean\_Factotum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sean_Factotum)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/18 "2006-02-06T17:21:03Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > I am officially stealing this idea for a TV show. > > We call call it Churchill’s Fightin’ Fury. They would be ninjas. right? Ex-US Navy checking in - what **Ragu** said pretty much covers it. Written communications go without the article, spoken (for the most part) uses “the”. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Goob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c77e96/32.png) [@Mr.Goob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Goob)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/19 "2006-02-06T17:50:37Z")
I’m ex-Navy too. Most of the time I always said the the. It depends on the name of the ship as well. One of my ships was the USS Detroit. It sounds funny if you don’t use the article. Now for USS Kitty Hawk, it rolls off the tounge either way. ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/20 "2006-02-06T18:12:43Z")
> [@wevets](#): > > I go for “the” also. > > It just sounds wrong to say “I’ll be spending two weeks on _David Starr Jordan_” - grammatically, and socially, awkward. I think context is what’s important. In the above example, the definite article is necessary. But in deep space battles, you can be pretty sure when you say “Reliant is closing”, nobody is going to shoot back at you with “_Reliant who_” or _which Reliant?_" If they did, then I guess you’d have to respond with a clarifier: “ **The** Reliant. Sorry, I should have said _The_ Reliant”. So when it’s clear that you are speaking about **the** one and only, you can leave out the definite article. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134.md?page=2)