It is certainly over 72ft LWL and not a submarine, so it is a ship. But boats include ships, which is more of a courtesy title. Nuclear submarines are ships, others are boats.
[edit - LWL not LOL of course. That’s what happens when you type with both hands and have a keyboard accident.]
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What’s so funny about its length overall? 
If there’s a class hierarchy here, then shouldn’t nuclear subs be U boats and the others non-U boats?
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Today I learned. Thanks!
My dad (who worked in ship engine rooms) used to get really pissed off at people who said that he worked on a boat.
Yes, corrected. Should have been LWL.
I imagine it depends on the people. It’s like being an engineer in the UK; people think that means you repair washing machines. So in a technical gathering someone might say if asked “I’m an engineer working for Bosch”, but they wouldn’t say that to a member of the general public.
A friend who was chief engineer on nuclear submarines in the US used to tell people that he had been responsible for keeping the kettle on the boil on a big boat, but he was Jewish and knew all about self-deprecation.
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Humblebragging again.
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On my tablet, I type with one hand. On my laptop, with two. My laptop has both Roman and Russian alphabets, so the O key also has the Russian letter Щ which as you can see looks a bit like a W. So it was actually mental confusion, kind of typing with one hand on a keyboard where, before touch keyboards, I would have touchtyped, and looking at the keys.
Things were so much easier in the days when everything was good old 127-character ASCII.
You want we should go back to using rates?
The trouble is that the rate system has suffered a change in popular meaning. Originally a second rate ship was a very large, powerful ship just below the very biggest. Even a sixth rate ship was a major warship. But second rate has come to mean “poor”.
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Showing my age.
Unless there is more in the Wikipedia article, it is wrong. It comes from a book by Nancy Mitford, Noblesse Oblige. Sadly I have lost my copy. The “U” usage was entirely that of the Mitford family and their relatives, and did not really reflect upper-class usage. The “U” actually stands for “us”.
It has never been completely clear whether Mitford was a howling snob or whether she was sending up her social set.
[quote=“phuzz, post:80, topic:75402, full:true”]
Names might be re-used after a couple of generations, or as a middle name, but the idea of calling your kid “Joe Bloggs the second” is very, well, American.[/quote]
As American as the gallon. Sure, you don’t use it anymore, but I’m pretty sure we didn’t come up with it. (For example, there’s this mention an old English newspaper.)
Anyway, you mean “Joe Bloggs junior”. When you use “the second” it just means you’re named after someone higher in the family tree, not necessarily a parent. Just ask your queen.
Ha, I thought you meant Uranium!
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You are not allowed to ask the Queen questions. You have to make a statement in her hearing and hope she corrects you. (You are also not allowed to tell her things without being asked. This is a way of ensuring that she doesn’t get to find out too much about what’s going on.)
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It hadn’t occurred to me. That makes it even better.
The article gives quite a bit more detail, but I’ve no idea if it’s right.
Maybe a bit of both, but more likely the latter.
Momentarily I thought of U[ntersee] Boats, and then went straight to Nancy Mitford. But your thought is the best one.
Horrible things, nuclear submarines; accidents waiting to happen. Nancy Mitford would certainly have classed them as non-U, but then any military activity other than the cavalry or command of a surface ship is a non-U job.
Thanks for the extra info, but my husband a Lieutenant on the USS John Paul Jones …back in the day, in the Nuclear Navy, says a boat is smaller and can be carried on a ship technically. Hence life boats… or the size of a PT Boat --qualify. It was a silly observation …since the whole story was silly, but I couldn’t resist commenting. It usually annoys my husband when folks refer to a Ship as a Boat.
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[quote=“Jody, post:97, topic:75402, full:true”]
Thanks for the extra info, but my husband a Lieutenant on the USS John Paul Jones …back in the day[/quote]
Either you have great genes, or you don’t mean this USS John Paul Jones
, in the Nuclear Navy, says a boat is smaller and can be carried on a ship technically.
This discussion was giving me images of the naval equivalent of turducken, so I started poking around, and now I’m more confused than ever. Wikipedia says that submarines, since they don’t carry other boats, are boats, but (for example) it also says that the USS Kentucky (a sub which is larger than the current USS John Paul Jones) is a ship. However, it was built by General Dynamics Electric Boat.
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Well now l vote we name one the jimmy page.
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