Talk:SS Normandie

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Was there a particular reason why the definite article before the ship's name is omitted throughout the article? It is customary to refer to ships as the Titanic, the Queen Mary, the Santa Maria, and so on. That is also how she's referred to in the online sources, for example the Antiques Roadshow article The Normandie: A Legend Undiminished. Unless I hear to the contrary, I propose to add them one of these days. Awien (talk) 02:20, 24 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I refer you to the article:

In France, ship prefixes properly depend on the ship name's gender, but non-sailors mostly use the masculine form,[18] inherited from the French terms for ship, which can be "paquebot", "navire", "bateau", "bâtiment", but English speakers refer to ships as feminine ("she's a beauty"), and the French Line carried many rich American customers. French Line wrote that their ship was to be called simply "Normandie," preceded by neither "le" nor "la" (French masculine/feminine for "the") to avoid any confusion.

101.164.231.185 (talk) 12:43, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll buy that the company said so. But just for the record, Grevisse (Le bon usage, p. 770, para. 465) blames a couple of government ministers for trying to impose "le genre que ces noms ont dans leur emploi ordinaire" on ship names, but notes that the masculine has come to prevail, "des mots comme navire, bateau etc. imposent leur genre", which they call logical and clearly approve of. They compare the usage to un havane, un terre-neuve, du champagne, etc., and add that as far as aircraft are concerned "aucun ministre ne s'est ému, et tout le monde dit et écrit, par ex., le Concorde". If Grevisse isn't behind conserving the regular gender of the word, "properly" is too strong a term to use for the practice.

I also note that the French WP article refers throughout to le Normandie, as it does to le France, le Queen Mary, etc.

And thirdly, the English definite article shows no gender, so saying / writing "the Normandie" causes no confusion.

However . . . Awien (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your analysis is fair and likely. I vote to keep the article's current naming convention in hommage of the original Transat decision. The italic typeface helps to delimit. 101.164.231.185 (talk) 12:39, 23 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The correct call sign is FNSK. The F was misread as P from the cited source. 84.148.1.119 (talk) 22:59, 12 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not seem entirely consistent, saying at various points:

• she was not a commercial success and relied partly on government subsidy to operate.
• her finances were such that she did not require government subsidies every year.
• Normandie did not require government subsidies in service

Jontel (talk) 18:44, 6 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The infobox says the ship is 35.9 m in beam, and references a Lloyd's report that no longer exists at the stated URL. I've seen the same figure elsewhere online, but I've also seen 36.4 m. This would be worth clearing up. Normandie was either wider than Queen Mary or it wasn't; it certainly *looks* beamier, but I know that isn't a reliable source. Sacxpert (talk) 05:15, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The article says the ship was seized under the right of Angary. Is there any information about when, after the war, the required payment was made to the owners? How much was it?

Fustbariclation (talk) 09:54, 10 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What's the reason for the "needs independent confirmation" tag on "led many to consider her the greatest"? It was added by an anonymous editor here: [1]. Both cited sources appear to be independent of the subject. A&E is not a great source and probably should just be removed. But Ardman is fine as far as I can tell. He is a long established journalist with many books in print with respectable publishers, has written for PBS, and has no connection to the subject that I can see. He is probably the one source we rely on the most for this article, so if there is a problem with citing him, we've got trouble.

We might want to re-word the sentence, as it's not very close to what Ardman says. But the sourcing itself looks good. GA-RT-22 (talk) 16:13, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]