If those are the most prominent things you find for that abbreviation, I have to start doubting Wikipedia. As a German seeing that abbreviation so freely used is always a little bit shocking.
replyThe German one isn't relevant for post-war American ships. Hope that helps.
replyThey aren't. I think that's the point. If you type "SS" into Wikipedia you get straight to Schutzstaffel. It's hard to find what it means in the context of ships.
replyIn all fairness, the term is much older than what that acronym's come to mean.
replyI always thought it stood for "Set Sail", but this definition is more pragmatic.
I assume the problem was that prominence of certain German use makes finding other meaning of this phrase tricky.
replyWait until you learn about SS the government security service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service
reply(Officially USSS, but it's often abbreviated to SS in common parlance.)
Even in German speaking forums for pregnant women it’s used liberally to abbreviate “Schwangerschaft” (pregnancy), which can result in some pretty funny phrases.
replyThanks, TIL!
replyApparently the RMS prefix on the RMS Titanic stands for "royal mail steamer" as it was authorised to carry the post.
as a kid I thought it meant Royal Majesty's Ship
replyHere is a great video on the topic.
replythe video claims it "Steam Ship" and not "Screw steamer". But later claims TSS is "triple screw steamship". So I'd be hesitant to trust the rest of the video's content.
replyThe first steam ships were paddle steamers, wiki even says SS can just be a generic term for steam ship.
replyIt's not unusual for acronyms to have multiple meanings, the S in HMS can mean submarine, as submarines aren't ships.
There's still one sea-going paddle steamer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_Waverley.
replyGilligan's Island lied to us all. The Minnow clearly wasn't a steamer...
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