[Grammar] Article: Ship's name "Titanic"

[naweewra]

Hello,

Is a ship's name treated like a person's name? Do we need "the" in front of the name?

Titanic is one of the most well-known ships in modern history.

And do I have to italicise the ship's name? I have seen it done in print and on the net. I know that books' names are often italicised or used with quotation marks. What about ships' names?

Thank you.

Nawee

 

[Rover_KE]

Both versions are seen and heard. Click here to see a frequency of use chart.

Ships' names are usually italicised.



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[Raymott]

Isn't there a problem with that chart? Wouldn't you have to subtract the lower chart from the upper to find the actually usage of "Titanic" alone? I suspect that every time "The Titanic" appears, it's counted once for 'Titanic' and once for "The Titanic" - ie. there are two counts, one for each term, making the count for "Titanic" twice as large as it should be. The chart certainly looks that way.

 

[Tdol]

I would use the.

 

[SoothingDave]

I would use the.

Me, too.

 

[Roman55]

Isn't there a problem with that chart? Wouldn't you have to subtract the lower chart from the upper to find the actually usage of "Titanic" alone? I suspect that every time "The Titanic" appears, it's counted once for 'Titanic' and once for "The Titanic" - ie. there are two counts, one for each term, making the count for "Titanic" twice as large as it should be. The chart certainly looks that way.

I am not a teacher.

I agree with that, and since the ship known as the Titanic was finished in 1912 the first century of that chart is pretty worthless. Thereafter, the two uses are neck and neck until the film Titanic (without the article) was released in 1997 giving it a slight edge.

 

[Barb_D]

I certainly use "the" before the names of ships. Navy ships too.

 

[Raymott]

Regarding navy ships. In Britain, a naval ship is called HMS Someship, and in Australia, HMAS Someothership. It sounds wrong to say "He sailed on the HMS Someship (the her majesty's ship Someship), although "He sailed on the Someship" sounds OK.
"The mutiny on the Bounty" but "The mutiny on HMS Bounty". But I could be wrong in practice.

 

[Barb_D]

The starship Enterprise.
I did my midshipman training on the USS El Paso, or the El Paso. Two years later, I was on the O'Bannon, a Spruance-class destroyer, named after the first ship in the class, the Spruance.

 

[lotus888]

The USS Arizona was one of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor.

http://www.pearlharbor.org/ships-and-aircraft.asp



--lotus

 

[Raymott]

I did my midshipman training on the USS El Paso, or the El Paso.

Great. . And what did you call Her Majesty's ships, if anything?

 

[MikeNewYork]

Boats. :lol:

 

[Roman55]

I did my midshipman training on the USS El Paso, or the El Paso.

I am not a teacher.

Isn't "the El Paso" tautological? Just a thought.

 

[Tdol]

Isn't "the El Paso" tautological? Just a thought.

There's a restaurant where I grew up known as the L'auberge Inn. ;-)

 

[Roman55]

I am not a teacher.

Brilliant! That's what's known as double tautology.

 

[charliedeut]

Isn't "the El Paso" tautological? Just a thought.

It is. "The" and "El" are the same article in English and Spanish.

Reminds me of the film "Mickey Blue Eyes", where Gina's relative (I disremember which one) owns a Restaurant called "The La Trattoria" :-D

 

[Barb_D]

No. El Paso is the name it the city and the ship named after it is "the El Paso". I'm sure you will also hear things like "the El Paso public library.

Boats are submarines. The big gray things that float on the water are ships.

 

[Raymott]

I'm still interested in what Americans call British ships. It was a serious question. A Google search for "HMS Victory" suggests that "The" is not used for such ships. It might also interest the OP.

 

[Tdol]

In BrE, if we say HMS, then we mostly don't use the article, though you will find it used occasionally. If we drop HMS, then we would say the Victory.

 

[SoothingDave]

I'm still interested in what Americans call British ships. It was a serious question. A Google search for "HMS Victory" suggests that "The" is not used for such ships. It might also interest the OP.

Not knowing any better, I would use a "the" with any country's ships.