Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
    ak>>  BTW, can you clarify the using of "the"   
    AH>>                           |use   
      
    ak>>  when we speak a ship name?   
    AH>>  |when we speak of a ship's name   
    AH>>  |when we speak of the name of a ship   
      
   ak>  It's interesting, can _I speak a name_ (I don't want   
   ak>  to speak about/of the name, I just want to speak (to   
   ak>  pronouce) that name. Or, maybe, I should use "say a name"?   
      
   ak>  .... when we say a ship's name.   
      
      
             I could have said "when we refer to a ship's name", but I was trying   
   not to overcorrect your wording.   
      
             Another alternative:  Whether we say it aloud or type it in echomail   
   or prepare a manuscript for an international publisher we do the same thing...   
   we tend to use "the" even if it's not part of a ship's official name.   
      
             Here's a historical note, e.g., from a book our daughter was reading   
   recently.  In the book the names of the ships were in italics & the best I can   
   offer in this medium is upper case letters or underlining.  Either way I can't   
   reproduce the tilde over the "a" in "Sao" AFAIK.  My audience will easily see,   
   however, that the definite article has been added to these names in English:   
      
                 Vasco da Gama took four ships on his expedition [to India]:   
                 the flagship SAO GABRIEL, where he was in command;  the SAO   
                 RAFAEL;  the BERRIO;  and another smaller ship that carried   
                 supplies.   
      
      
      
   AH>  "HMS PINAFORE" is a comic operetta about a ship by this   
   AH>  name.  Reciting lyrics by memory...   
      
   AH>          We'll give three cheers and one cheer more   
   AH>          For the captain of the Pinafore.   
      
   AH>  AFAIC the captain of the Pinafore is like the President   
   AH>  of the United States... while various people may have been   
   AH>  selected for the position, there's only one such title   
   AH>  holder at any given time.  And it's highly unlikely there's   
   AH>  any other real or imaginary ship which is officially named   
   AH>  "Pinafore"....  :-))   
      
   ak>  ....especially when we say "Captain of Pinafore".   
   ak>  It's all clear IMHO, no need for two "the". ;)   
      
      
             Uh-oh.  I think you may be seeing a redundancy where native speakers   
   of English wouldn't.  I've noticed the same thing with Chinese greengrocers in   
   this part of the world.  They don't understand why we pluralize "onion", e.g.,   
   when they have a bin filled with onions & we want to buy two or three.  As far   
   as they're concerned any number greater than one indicates the plural....  :-)   
      
             In formal language the name of this ship is HMS (Her Majesty's Ship)   
   PINAFORE... and this man's rank is Captain.  In the common parlance we tend to   
   use "the" more freely.  With a naval vessel it's easier than remembering which   
   prefixes are used in which countries & we may be unsure about whether the ship   
   we're referring to actually is a naval vessel.  While the crew of the Pinafore   
   would have known, "the" is shorter than "HMS" & scans better... [chuckle].   
      
             At the opposite end of the spectrum I also see privately owned boats   
   with names like "Bubbles", "Suzy Q.", or Mama's Mink".  In such cases we often   
   employ "the"... with or without a bit of description... for clarity.  We don't   
   have much alternative in oral speech, where we can't play around with fonts or   
   whatever & where quotation marks aren't quite so obvious to the listener.  :-)   
      
      
      
   ak>  So "the" is most commonly used when we speak of ship's names.   
      
      
             Yes.  Another famous example is "The (passenger ship) TITANIC".  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)