So it just occurred to me that during the TNG production era there is a shift in ship nomenclature:
- TNG: The Enterprise
- DS9: The Defiant/Yukon/Danube/etc.
- VOY:
TheVoyager - (ENT): “Ennurprais” is all that’s left.
Seems towards the later shows they stopped referring to the ship as a, well, ship and just addressed it as a character? Why?
They do call at least Voyager “the Voyager,” at the beginning, but the crews of the Voyager and the NX-01 lived on their ships, more than the crews of the Defiant and the D. They rarely had shore leave, let alone the option to take a leave of absence, or transfer to another ship. It makes sense they’d be more casual about them. When they were saying “We have to get back to Voyager,” they were basically saying “We have to go home.”
I think there was a behind-the-scenes decision at some point that The Voyager sounded oddly formal and stilted compared to The Enterprise.
Yeah…‘the Voyager’ sounds awkward to me in a way that ‘the Enterprise’ doesn’t. You also hear this in the real life Voyager probes.
With many other ships, both real and fictional, the same phenomenon is noticeable - if the ship name sounds awkward with a ‘the’ in front, it will usually not be part of the name.
Interesting, I hadn’t considered that. Though that would still not explain why even the “formal” guys like janeway and tuvok are using the colloquial form at all times, even when interacting with other species. I’d imagine especially tuvok would use the correct form at all times, just because it is the proper way.
For ENT I have nothing, only perhaps that the snobby Vulcans were referring to it as just enterprise as well, right from the start. All other non human ships got addressed properly though (the kumari, the dal‘kyr).
“I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Star Ship Voyager.” Once it’s been properly introduced she abbreviates with “Voyager.”