Hi, Mark!  Recently you wrote in a message to alexander koryagin:   
      
    ak>  "Titanic" ship cost 7.5 million dollars. "Titanic" movie   
    ak>  cost 200 million dollars.   
      
    ml>  "Titanic", the ship, cost 7.5 million dollars. "Titanic",   
    ml>  the movie, cost 200 million.   
      
    ml>  The ship named "Titanic" cost 7.5 million dollars. A movie   
    ml>  about the "Titanic" cost 200 million.   
      
      
              Or...   
                 The ship "Titanic" cost 7.5 million dollars.  The movie   
   "Titanic" cost 200 million dollars.   
      
      
      
    ak>  BTW, can you clarify the using of "the" when we speak a   
    ak>  ship name?   
      
    ml>  ummmm... i'm not sure but i /think/ it is because we speak   
    ml>  of a specific thing... i really don't know the rules or where   
    ml>  to find them... i just know how i/we speak about different   
    ml>  things...   
      
      
              The only rule I know of WRT names of ships is that they are   
   regarded as feminine for grammatical purposes.  But you've given me an idea....   
      
      
      
    ak>  Indeed, in spoken English people cannot hear quotation marks,   
    ak>  but they should somehow accentuate the attention on the name.   
      
      
              Yes, punctuation is an attempt to represent in print what we do   
   with our voices in oral speech.  I hear myself putting a slight emphasis on   
   the name "Anna Karenina" when I rehearse aloud how I would say our daughter &   
   I read the novel together.  I didn't hear that when my mother said things like   
   "I met Mrs. So-and-So at the bus stop yesterday, and she told me [blah   
   blah]"....  ;-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  well, consider if i said   
      
    ml>  the titanic ship cost 7.5 million dollars.   
      
    ml>  am i talking about a really huge ship or am i talking   
    ml>  about a specific ship? granted, in writing, the proper   
    ml>  name is capitalized...   
      
      
              "Queen Mary", IIRC, was the grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II...   
   and there was also a ship named after her.  In this case, I can tell which is   
   which by the presence or absence of the definite article.  With other people   
   who have similar names we specify by saying something like "Mary, Queen of   
   Scots".  With registered ships we assume rightly or wrongly that their names   
   are unique.  :-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  yes, i understand, too, that my use of all lower case   
    ml>  most of the time may also add to the confusion or maybe   
    ml>  mystique...   
      
      
              "Titanic" could be an adjective or a proper noun.  Am I   
   capitalizing the word here because it's a name or because it's the first word   
   in a sentence? Usually I try to avoid such ambiguities, but in this example I   
   deliberately put it where I did to show that capital letters don't solve   
   everything....  :-)   
      
      
      
    ml>  the context should bring forth the light of understanding,   
    ml>  though... so, back to the example... if i left out the word   
    ml>  "ship" does that change the statement?   
      
    ak>  Although we probably can say "The Titanic sunk quickly."   
      
    ml>  yes, that's quite valid, too...   
      
      
              Except that where I come from we say "sink, sank, sunk".  YMMV.  ;-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)