Italics in New TNG Books

[Scott Pearson]

Xeris said:
I would have said that using the qualifier "Federation starship" is actually to identify the vessel to an alien (hostile or otherwise) commander/representative, rather than it being a superfluous piece of dialogue.

And if you would have said that, I would have had to admit you had a point.

Yeah, with "Federation" there it makes more sense, and grammar demands "starship" after that. "Starship" probably isn't used without "Federation" much (outside of the blurbs on the cover of the book), but if it is used in dialogue, I imagine this reply: "No shit. I didn't think it was a golf cart."

Scott

 

[Sci]

"F.S.S. Defiant" would be more logical than "U.F.P.S. Defiant." After all, they don't call it the "U.S.A.S. Abraham Lincoln;" "Federation" seems to be the same generally-accepted shorthand for "United Federation of Planets" that "United States" is for "United States of America."

 

[Christopher]

Sci said:
"F.S.S. Defiant" would be more logical than "U.F.P.S. Defiant." After all, they don't call it the "U.S.A.S. Abraham Lincoln;" "Federation" seems to be the same generally-accepted shorthand for "United Federation of Planets" that "United States" is for "United States of America."

Maybe, but my point is that there are other ways of doing it besides the standard used by the US Navy. That Wikipedia list of ship prefixes I linked to shows a number of alternative approaches, including cases where a country's full name is used in the abbreviation.

And realistically, where's the logic in using two letters just to represent "spaceship" or "starship"? That's the part I have the biggest credibility problem with. "SS" used to mean "steamship," but these days, the "USS" prefix means "United States Ship." And "HMS" is "His/Her Majesty's Ship," and so on. Given that any capital ship in Starfleet is a spaceship or starship by definition, there's no sense in using a double S. If you did go with F to represent the Federation, then it would logically be FS, not FSS.

Perhaps one could interpret "USS Enterprise" to mean "United Federation of Planets Starfleet Ship," with "United Star Ship" being a shorthand for that as a backformation from the initialism.

 

[Sci]

Christopher said:

Sci said:
"F.S.S. Defiant" would be more logical than "U.F.P.S. Defiant." After all, they don't call it the "U.S.A.S. Abraham Lincoln;" "Federation" seems to be the same generally-accepted shorthand for "United Federation of Planets" that "United States" is for "United States of America."

Maybe, but my point is that there are other ways of doing it besides the standard used by the US Navy. That Wikipedia list of ship prefixes I linked to shows a number of alternative approaches, including cases where a country's full name is used in the abbreviation.

True -- but I tend to think that a prefix longer than three letters just sounds really awful! In retrospect, I should have used "asethically-pleasing" instead of "logical" in my above post.

I like the idea that "USS" stands for "United Federation of Planets Starfleet Ship."

 

[TGTheodore]

Christopher said:I think a more plausible prefix would be something like UFPS, "United Federation of Planets Starship."

Or USPS, if they're delivering mail.

--Ted

 

[Vic Sixx]

How about the MFSS Enterprise?

 

[David Mack]

^ Only in the Tarantinoverse.

 

[Herbert1]

Christopher said:

Sci said:
"F.S.S. Defiant" would be more logical than "U.F.P.S. Defiant." After all, they don't call it the "U.S.A.S. Abraham Lincoln;" "Federation" seems to be the same generally-accepted shorthand for "United Federation of Planets" that "United States" is for "United States of America."

Maybe, but my point is that there are other ways of doing it besides the standard used by the US Navy. That Wikipedia list of ship prefixes I linked to shows a number of alternative approaches, including cases where a country's full name is used in the abbreviation.

And realistically, where's the logic in using two letters just to represent "spaceship" or "starship"? That's the part I have the biggest credibility problem with. "SS" used to mean "steamship," but these days, the "USS" prefix means "United States Ship." And "HMS" is "His/Her Majesty's Ship," and so on. Given that any capital ship in Starfleet is a spaceship or starship by definition, there's no sense in using a double S. If you did go with F to represent the Federation, then it would logically be FS, not FSS.

Perhaps one could interpret "USS Enterprise" to mean "United Federation of Planets Starfleet Ship," with "United Star Ship" being a shorthand for that as a backformation from the initialism.

But you are forgetting that the Enterprise model was created for "The Cage" and painted U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 before the invention of the United Earth Space Probe Agency or the United Federation of Planets.

Could the model have been painted U.S.S. Enterprise at the time in honor of the United States Navy ship?

Then after the fact, a meaning was devised for the abreviation?

At the time of the model's construction, it could have easily meant United something S[/b]tar Ship.

It's a question of usage whether star ship or starship is correct. Pick one and be consistent.

We have had similar debates in the past of whether it's Star Fleet or Starfleet. Pre-TNG materials use Star Fleet (two words) while TNG materials onwards use Starfleet (one word).

 

[Trent Roman]

Herbert said:
It's a question of usage whether star ship or starship is correct. Pick one and be consistent.

We have had similar debates in the past of whether its Star Fleet or Starfleet. Pre-TNG materials use Star Fleet (two words) while TNG materials onwards use Starfleet (one word).

I've always preferred the latter, but then I'm attracted to compound words generally. It seems to me that 'star ship' and 'star fleet' are terms that would have seen so much use by this time that they would have naturally run together, like 'to morrow' did.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Christopher]

Herbert said:
But you are forgetting that the Enterprise model was created for "The Cage" and painted U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 before the invention of the United Earth Space Probe Agency or the United Federation of Planets.

No, I'm not forgetting it, because that's not relevant to the point I'm making. I'm not saying the producers of the show could have done it that way. I'm speaking hypothetically about what would be a more likely usage if there were a "United Federation of Planets" in the future.

It's a question of usage whether star ship or starship is correct. Pick one and be consistent.

Again you're completely missing my point, and doing so in a rather snide way. Obviously "starship" is correct; but the TOS producers decided to justify the "USS" prefix by claiming it stood for "United Space Ship" or "United Star Ship." For their purposes, they were treating that as two words. I was reporting their usage, which is the only reason I split it into two words.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Herbert said:
Pre-TNG materials use Star Fleet (two words) while TNG materials onwards use Starfleet (one word).

My first exposure to the term "Starfleet" was as a fan of ST:TMP, and I didn't see "Star Fleet" being used until I picked up things like the Franz Joseph "Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual". I think the TOS movie publicity machine, and the fully-licensed ST tie-ins, began to use "Starfleet" more consistently to put some distance from the "Star Fleet Battles" gaming materials, which were based on the "Tech Manual" and licensed directly from Franz Joseph, thanks to the quirks in his original agreement with Norway Corp and Paramount.

 

[captcalhoun]

i noticed, as well as Being Human, Gods Above doesn't use italics for com conversations and the editor or proof-reader must have been off that day as it's riddled with mistakes like using 'he' instead of 's/he' for Burgy and having or not of in places...

 

[Trek]

Christopher said:
Perhaps one could interpret "USS Enterprise" to mean "United Federation of Planets Starfleet Ship," with "United Star Ship" being a shorthand for that as a backformation from the initialism.

I really like this explaination. "UFP Starfleet Ship" would have nicely differentiated the New (Federation) Starfleet from the old (United Earth) Starfleet when the Federtaion was formed.

"United Star Ship" has never sounded right to me.