Talk:French destroyer Chevalier Paul (1932)

Correct name

Hello,

This article's current title implies that ship's name is Le Chevalier Paul, as does most of the text, but the lead says just Chevalier Paul. On the other hand, the corresponding article in French names it Chevalier Paul, its text being in line with that. Obviously, one of them is wrong.

Most of the present article seems to be based on French Destroyers by Jordan & Moulin, which names the ship Le Chevalier Paul ([1]). On the other hand, the article in French is mostly sourced from Jean Lassalle, Les contre-torpilleurs de 2700 tonnes du type "Vauquelin", Rennes, Marines Éditions, 2000 (ISBN 9782909675572), which names it Chevalier Paul. It is also sourced on a copy of the official report of its sinking, which also names it Chevalier Paul.

That form of the name, without the Le (which just means "the" in French) can also be found on various other sources :

• Paul Auphan, Jacques Mordal, La marine française dans la Seconde guerre mondiale, Hachette 1976 (1st ed 1958) [2] (in French)
• Michel Bertrand, La marine française au combat, 1939-1945: Du sabordage à la victoire, Lavauzelle, 1982 [3] (in French)
• Donald Berke, Don Kindell, World War II Sea War, vol.1 [4] (seems to be auto-edited, but anyway)
• Also, various websites in French, such as NetMarine, Alabordache, the French Sailors memorial or Seconde Guerre.

Unless someone has an official document stating differently, to me it proves the correct name is Chevalier Paul, not including the definite article "Le". Akela NDE (talk) 14:16, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

You seem to have missed that the Marine nationale started to use articles in the names of their ships in the 1930s and 1940s; see French destroyer Le Fantasque, etc. and I see little reason not to assume that this policy started with Le Chevalier Paul, which was the first interwar ship to use the article in its name. As the first ship thus named in decades, I expect a certain amount of confusion in official documents and secondary sources as seen in Bertrand as it would be seen as ungrammatical by people peripherally connected to the ship. In Tome 2, p. 205, Bertrand clearly gives the ship's name as Le Chevalier Paul; I don't know why he didn't do it on pages 26–27. Bertrand uses the article pretty consistently in both volumes for the later ships.

So what I think we have are dueling usages on whether or not the article is part of the ship's official name. You have a good point about the official report not using the article, but I would want to see more documents, especially any relating to the ship's construction and launching, to see if it was referred to consistently without the article. Does Gallica go as late as that?

I'm going to ping the only other native-French speaker active on WP:Ships of which I'm aware to solicit his opinion on this matter.@Rama:--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:48, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Objectively: There have been three Chevalier Paul: a destroyer during the Second World War, a fleet escort during the Cold War, and the present-day air defence frigate. The fleet escort and air defence frigate are unambiguously named Chevalier Paul (not Le Chevalier Paul). For the destroyer, I see some sources ambiguously including the article, or not (for instance, Roche's Dictionnaire des Bâtiments de la Flotte de Guerre française de Colbert à nos Jours lists the destroyer in an entry "Chevalier Paul (Le)", and the two others as "Chevalier Paul". I also see that nowadays the destroyer is usually called Chevalier Paul (rather than Le Chevalier Paul), including in somewhat authoritative publications (e.g. the magazine of the Friends of the Musée de la Marine association, the French Navy magazine Cols Bleus).

Subjectively: Le Chevalier Paul looks weird. You sometimes include articles in nominalised adjectives (e.g. Téméraire -> "Temerarious" vs Le Téméraire -> "Temerarious one"), but an article before a proper noun looks odd. Furthermore, in an English-speaking context, I think we should be extra careful of not looking like we are exoticising foreign nouns or using articles ("le", "la", "les") as ship prefixes ("HMS", "USS" etc). Hence, when in doubt, excluding articles from ship nouns seems the safer bet to me.

In conclusion, I would leave it at Chevalier Paul for the destroyer as well, but I think it is an issue of relatively minor importance in the grand scheme of things.

Cheers! Rama (talk) 07:17, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you both. I agree with @Rama's arguments (and am sorry for putting forward this relatively minor issue, no harm was intended). I could not find anything on Gallica, but the Defence Historical Service archive index only has entries for Chevalier Paul ( here and here).

To further Rama's subjective remarks, it ought to be noted that in French, using an article in front of a ship name is usual and does not necessarily imply that article is part of the name (e.g. fr:Titanic: "Le RMS Titanic est un paquebot […] Le Titanic est commandé[…]").

I will be away for a couple of days, but feel free to tag me if needed. Akela NDE (talk) 13:10, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

I still find it hard to understand why a navy that adopted names like Le Hardi, L'Adroit and Le Triomphant that included the article, would not do the same with Le Chevalier Paul. Perhaps it's because the latter doesn't change the meaning like Rama said.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:13, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

Because Hardi, Adroit and Triomphant are adjectives. Le Hardi is a nominised adjective.

On the other hand, "Chevalier Paul" is a proper noun referring to a person, and so "Le Chevalier Paul" sounds as strange as something like "HMS The Queen Elizabeth" would in English.

Cheers! Rama (talk) 21:53, 23 April 2023 (UTC)