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'Boaty McBoatface' Polar Ship Named After Attenborough Despite Less Votes (bbc.com)

Posted by msmash on from the whatever-floats-your-boat dept.

The UK's 200 Million Euro polar research ship won't be called Boaty McBoatface. Instead, the new ship will be called RRS (Royal Research Ship) Sir David Attenborough. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) had originally planned to name the new ship via an online poll. In all fairness, RRS Sir David Attenborough did pick up a few votes, though in terms of popularity nothing came close to Boaty McBoatface (it earned over 124,000 votes). "We want a name that lasts longer than a social-media news cycle and reflects the serious nature of the science it will be doing," said Jo Johnson, the U.K. Science minister. BBC reports: While the polar ship itself will not be named Boaty McBoatface, one of its remotely operated sub-sea vehicles will be named Boaty in recognition of the vote. James Hand, who first suggested the flippant moniker, said he was pleased the name would "live on."

3 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. fewer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    it's "fewer votes" not "less votes"

    the same way you say "greater than" not "greater then"

    punk kids

  2. Up front about it by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    They were up front about the fact that a name would have to be approved before it was applied to the ship.

    Boaty MacBoatface was obviously never going to be approved. Whatever snowball's chance in hell it might have had despite its deep irreverence toward Her Majesty's navy was eliminated by the fact that it's calling a ship a boat.

    You don't call a ship a boat. A boat is little. A ship is big. See, e.g., http://www.marineinsight.com/t...

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
  3. Re: Strange irony by Frank+Burly · · Score: 3, Informative
    She got a law degree from Yale, which a lot of people find impressive.

    She helped build civil rights cases in the South, which a lot of people find admirable.

    She was actually re-elected to the Senate—so elected twice.

    If the her appointment as SoS was to placate her, then presumably she built enough genuine support to need placating (nobody is placating Cruz or Kaisch, after all).

    Very few people at that level can claim to have done it on their own. Trump is the son of a millionaire real estate developer (who's ROI is less than an index fund would have produced); Romney is the son of a millionaire industrialist and governor; McCain's father was an admiral and his wife is a beer heiress; George W is the son of a President and his father is the son of a wealthy banker and senator.

    I hope you didn't accidentally vote for any of these people!