Thread: Kobayashi Maru
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ColinHowell (Offline)
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06-13-2011, 01:26 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz View Post
You're correct, MMM.

In any case, English lacks a single thing like this, but we do have a series of "ship prefixes" depending on situation that are equivalent to -maru in Japanese: Ship prefix - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I think the closest true equivalent is "HMS" (for Her/His Majesty's Ship) in the UK. To the best of my knowledge, the HMS Titanic was not a British naval ship, but it was still prefixed by "HMS."

On the other hand, in the US, the most famous one (and most likely the only US prefix any American would know) is "USS," or "United States Ship," used only by the US Navy.

In fact, before I pulled that Wikipedia page, the only ship prefixes I knew of were USS and HMS. Well, I also know "SS," but I don't even know if that's used in modern times. It stands for "steamship."
None of those are really at all close to Maru (丸). The use of Maru for Japanese commercial ship names (it's never used for warships) seems to be a matter of naming tradition; it carries no specific meaning. As masaegu said, there really is no equivalent in English ship-naming practices. All the name prefixes you give have specific identification purposes.

First, there are warship prefixes. USS, as you said, identifies a warship of the U.S. Navy, and likewise for HMS and the Royal Navy. (Like USS, HMS is only used for warships; Titanic did not carry that prefix. You're confusing HMS with RMS; see below.) There are a bunch of other warship prefixes for various nations and purposes (e.g. SMS, "Seiner Majestät Schiff" for the Imperial German Navy of World War One), but not all navies have followed this practice. Neither the Imperial Japanese Navy nor the German Kriegsmarine of World War Two used it, though prefixes have been invented after the fact for both navies for convenience.

A prefix is sometimes used with commercial ships for their mode of propulsion, but this is inconsistent. In the days of steamships this was often SS. Nowadays, when most commercial ships are diesel-engined, it's usually MV ("motor vessel").

There have also been prefixes for commercial ships that have special status. Like many British ocean liners of her day, Titanic carried the prefix "RMS", for "Royal Mail Ship" (or "Royal Mail Steamer"). This meant the British government had licensed her to carry the mail.
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