Talk:French battleship La Gloire

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Both the article and links to it say the ship's name is "La Gloire". Is the feminine article actually party of the official name? If not, "La Gloire" is wrong, because in French, ships are male. It would be "le Gloire". -- 213.172.121.249 00:59, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

The ship name is indeed "La Gloire" as indicated in the Illustrated London News caption. In French, the word ship is indeed masculine ("un bateau"), but individual ship names can be feminine or masculine (cf FS La Motte-Picquet, La Fayette (F710). Somebody changed the name of the article to "FS Gloire" a while ago, but it should be "FS La Gloire". In any case "Le Gloire" is not possible. PHG 01:14, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to be direct, but your examples are bollocks : you managed to pick both examples among names of people.

Better examples are La Gracieuse or La Glorieuse ("the Gracious one" and "the Glorious one", respectively). Typically, when commons names used for a ship name, the "le/la" is not part part of the name : "S606 Perle" (not "La Perle"). English speakers tend to put "le/la" everywhere for a good and a bad reason :

1. Good reason : it is tricky because of the substantivied adjectives (La Glorieuse, Le Redoutable). In these cases, the "le/la" sems to be part of the name
2. Bad reason : its "sounds" French (to non-speakers). These kind of people also capitalise randomly, put accents anywhere, confuse é with è, and even cedillas. I hate them. :)

Besides, you are right : "Le Gloire", never ever. Rama 10:08, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

I just went to the Musee de la Marine last week, and the ship is designated as "La Gloire" although GLOIRE is put in italics and LA is not. Ex: "MISE A L'EAU DE LA FREGATE LA GLOIRE". What do you think? PHG 10:24, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The placement of the italics suggests that the name is "Gloire". On the on the hand, I have never seen her refered to as, for instance, "la frégate Gloire", but always as "la frégate la Gloire" (on the other hand, you do say things like "le chaland de débarquement Rapière") ; I suspect that la Gloire is some sort of exception. Frankly, names of ships can be tricky. Rama 12:14, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

PS: did you enjoy the museum ? Have they opened all the rooms ? Last time I went, a part of the museum was under repairs and I could not see the models of ships of the line of Louis XV and Louis XVI, I was so frustrated... Rama 12:18, 14 September 2006 (UTC)