Yes they are, and you’re saying otherwise does not make it so. The English language is filled with words that have overlapping meanings. Try “road” vs “street”. The fact that one word has slightly different connotations does not obliterate the similarity of meaning.
A “boat” is any object used to convey humans and/or payloads across water by floating on the water. A boat includes canoes and oil tankers. “Ships” are typically meant to refer to large boats. A rule of thumb is a boat big enough for people to stand up and walk around without risk of capsizing the boat is a ship. YMMV. IANA Dictionary. IANA Cecil.
BigT’s post is self contradictory for a start. A synonym is a word that is, per the OED, one that is identical & co-extensive in sense and usage with another of the same language. If the two words “have different connotations” they are not synonyms.
Further, you cannot say two words mean the same if they are merely overlapping to some degree. “Boat” may be used by some people to refer to a large craft, but no significant number of people use “ship” to mean a small craft.
“Road” vs “street” is one thing, but “road” vs “motorway” is another.
I thought ships were ocean-going but boats weren’t. Which is why ferries are all boats, never mind how big they are.
But then submarines are boats, so…
So, you may be technically correct that a synonym is only really a synonym if all usages are exactly correct, but it is certainly a widespread use of synonym to apply to words that have similar or overlapping meaning, not necessarily identical in all connotations.
But if I point at an oil tanker and call it a “boat”, I am not wrong. If I call a canoe a “ship”, I am wrong. Ships are a subset of boats, though some people prefer the more limited term for their specific circumstances, because it conveys a sense of importance upon the person. I can say two words mean the same thing if in the context being used they are overlapping.
There is no explicit definition for ship* other than “big boat”. The word is an old word, and there is no central authority to declare definitions. There is only convention and usage, and historical pretext. The OED has no authority to force word use, it only records what the historical use has been and the origins as they can be determined.
*In the context of a vessel, as opposed to other uses such as the verb form for transporting goods, etc.
I spent 11 years in the Navy, and these were the rules I was taught:
a ship can carry a boat, but not vice-versa (exactly in agreement with Cecil)
a ship’s crewmember can refer to his/her own ship as a “boat,” but cannot refer to another ship as a “boat.” In other words, if I were stationed on the USS Enterprise, I could say, “What time do I need to be back on the boat?” But when referring to the USS Constellation, I would have to say, “Did you see the goofy guys from that other ship?”
Blah, blah, blah, what you mention boils down to terms used as defined by the Navy for the Navy, basically terms for courtesy sake. But the U.S. Navy is not the authority for the definition of common words. There is no authority, only common and historical usage.
“Boat” is a generic term that some people do not feel conveys enough status/moral imperative/significance to their personal vessel, and only the word “ship” can convey that significance. But that’s personal preference and that is all it is. A “ship” is a big boat. A “boat” is any floating vessel for transporting humans and/or goods. A supertanker is a boat, it is also a ship. A rowboat is a boat, but it is not a ship.
Do you realise how funny it is that you are dismissing everyone else’s experience including, in particular, the experience of those who actually work with ships and boats and therefore talk about them more than most (ie have a high level of usage) as irrelevant blah, while stating your own opinion in categorical terms as if it were the word of a deity? Do you see the irony? Why exactly do you think that what you say is Unarguably Correct, while what others say is not?
I’m very much inclined to a descriptive and not a prescriptive view of language, but there is necessarily a tension (and a useful tension) between keeping some precision, consistency and uniformity in language use (which is what prescriptivism does) and keeping a reasonably good relationship between definitions of words as used and recorded definitions (which is what descriptivism does).
I know a number of people who refer to the box containing their desktop computer as their “hard drive” yet anyone in the field would say that is simply incorrect. It takes more than some usage by some people who don’t know much about the subject matter to make a word take on a meaning with the type of certainty that you baldly assert.
By the way, I notice that you are from Houston, or perhaps going by your username you are an ex-pat. Do you accept that you are a Yank, or at least that locals in Houston are Yanks (ie short for Yankees)?
Yes, I do see the irony. And I do seem to be coming off very adamant in my use of the words.
Here’s the problem - I cannot seem to find any justification for limiting the use of “boat” to small water vessels, other than some predisposition that a large water vessel must be a “ship”. The word “boat” has old roots dating back to Indo-European, which would certainly justify why the early uses of the word apply to smaller vessels simply because when the word originated, there *were no *large vessels. Does that mean the word stops applying because the boats get bigger?
I don’t see how there is any authority to definitively declare the use of “boat” as improper against large, ocean-going vessels. But maybe it’s a bit like the IAU getting to redefine the word “planet”. The community of water vessel users all agree that boats are small and ships are large, so while the dividing line is murky, there is an agreed distinction. I guess I’m just looking for a better justification than “because we said so”, when the “we” isn’t even clearly delineated.
I don’t particularly like being called wrong for calling a supertanker a “boat” when the only justification that can be given is you* don’t like the use. If floats on water, it transports people, it’s a boat.
*Whomever “you” is at the time.
Kinda depends upon the context. If you mean “Yankee” as in “Yankee Doodle” as in “American”, of course. If you mean “Yankee” as in “northerner”, then no. You seem to be using the first and hoping I’ll take it as the second.
Almost as bad as if you described the usage of “ship” versus “boat” in a particular community, without implying other usage was wrong, and someone responded dismissively with “Blah, blah, blah”?
But you are not going to get it. That’s not the way language works. Words mean very largely what they are used to mean. There are any number of words that are very old but are now used to mean something totally different. There is no absolute authority.
Well I just mentioned this as an illustration because in Australia we sometimes call Americans “Yanks” but when if we use that term about a southerner, they tend to get offended because they consider the word to mean a northerner. In fact, I have never before heard a southerner admit that Yank can be a generic term for American. If you consider that it can be a generic term, then it’s not a useful parallel for the purpose of this debate.
That’s an interesting point, probably worthy of its own thread. As someone from a northern state, I wouldn’t think twice about someone from another country using “Yank” to refer to any American, but now that you point it out, I can see that someone from a former Confederate state might have a completely different opinion. Someone I know who lived in the DC area used to say that if you go a little South of DC, the Civil War ended Yesterday.
Yeah, that was a bit much. I read itfitz’s remark as justification for one particular usage in all cases, which is why my response says it only applies to the Navy.
**The Flying Dutchman ** said:
“Boat” is a generic word. Same as aircraft. A 747, an F-22, a biplane, a glider, and a blimp are all aircraft.
Yes but you also want to appoint yourself as the authority as to what boat means, while others who use the word more than you and who work in the field say you are wrong. And you won’t accept what they say because they don’t have authority. But you do. Apparently.
No, I don’t claim any authority, other than that of a person who uses the word. My attempts to summarize the definition are my understanding of how the word is used in general language by many people. What I am reacting to is people declaring that my understanding is wrong, but not having any stronger basis for their definition than I have for my definition. If I seem adamant, it is because I have just as much authority as they do.
Look, you want to say a boat can only be small or can’t travel on the ocean, that’s your business, but I’m going to call a ship a class of boats.
