[Grammar] å

[hooshdar3]

Hi
In the sentence "We were sinking fast and the captain gave the order to abandon ship"

Why doesn't ship have an article?

 

[SlickVic9000]

(Not a Teacher)

The sentence would still make plenty of sense if you inserted "the" before "ship", though the omission of "the" makes the sentence flow better.

But I can't think of a particular grammar rule that explains why "ship" doesn't need a "the".

 

[emsr2d2]

The official legal emergency call by a captain if he is ordering his crew (and passengers) to get off/jump off the ship in an emergency is simply "Abandon ship!" I assume this is simply to save time. If your ship is sinking you want to shout as few words as possible to alert everyone to the danger. The sentence you posted simply has "Abandon ship" but not in direct speech. Effectively it says '... the captain gave the order "Abandon ship" '.

 

[5jj]

hooshdar, please try to give your threads more helpful titles than 'å'. This tells us nothing.