# "The" before a ship's name -- sound weird to you?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134>\
**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:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2006, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/21 "2006-02-06T22:05:35Z")

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> [@friedo](#):
>
> 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.

I kinda liked that they dropped the definite article; it was an easy way of distingusihing between this and the other ships.

Of course, that’s about the only thing I did like about the show.

–Cliffy

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**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/22 "2006-02-07T00:29:48Z")

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Another ex-squid.

I’ve taken to dropping the article, myself, but I think it’s more an affectation than a reflection of anything I was exposed to during my service.

Having said that, there’s a good reason to consider keeping the article: When a captain would come aboard, he would be announced as “Ship Name, arriving.” Using the article for the ship name for the ship, and simply ship name for the captain makes sense to me.

Once you start talking nicknames, however, it all goes out the window. Who’s going to talk about The _Mudpuppy_? It was just _Mudpuppy_.

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**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\
**Post date:** [February 7, 2006, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-before-a-ships-name-sound-weird-to-you/343134/23 "2006-02-07T00:50:47Z")

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> [@Raguleader](#):
>
> 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_)

Which usually translates to:

“We’re completely fucked, sir! Wait a second—it’s the OTHER guys who are fucked! The cock has been removed from our collective ass, sir!”

(Though I actually only remember the sequence you describe happening once, in the best NextGen movie, First Contact.)

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