Hacker News Reader

Comment by duxup | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure the rename had good reason but I can't imagine going from a name like "HMS Endeavour", what a great name, to "Lord Sandwich" ... in modern times that sounds like some lighthearted forum username.

View on HN

The HMS Lord Sandwich's namesake is almost certainly former 1st Lord of the Admiralty John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich && person that the dish is actually named after.

He was also head of the British navy ("First Lord of the Admiralty") at the time and a great supporter of Cook's, so there's even a closer connection specific to the Endeavor. Cook named Hawaii the "Sandwich Islands" after him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Montagu,_4th_Earl_of_Sand...

What were the existing names of the islands?

It’s the Hawaiian islands

Hawaiʻi > Etymology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Etymology

The Earl of Sandwich was not a naval officer; the First Lord of the Admiralty was the chair of the Board of Admiralty, which was a committee formed to undertake the duties of the office of Lord High Admiral. The Board of Admiralty had responsibility for the administration of the Royal Navy. Operational command was (and remains) the responsibility of the Sea Lords; the most senior serving officer of the Royal Navy is the First Sea Lord.

I love that they also marked up "Sandwich" as a tag, to make it easier for you to explore other articles they had published about sandwiches.

It also likely gave us Sandwich, MA, which consequently gave us the police there, who are literally “Sandwich Police”

Or you can find an art gallery next to a Subway, where Sandwich artists work side by side.

Which is doubly funny because it's a tourist/retirement town with a larger than it needs police department (whole region is this way, not just this town) so they inevitably fill their time with with activities befitting the name.

Are you saying the excessive number of police results in absurd enforcement practices, or are you saying their officers are large because they spend all day confiscating sandwiches?

Yes

> they spend all day confiscating sandwiches?

Enforcing a "no food or drink" posting in a public place that exists solely to drive business to vendors (who've doubtlessly paid an unnecessary chunk of flesh to the government for access to the captive market) is exactly the kind of thing I can see them doing.

Same reason we get modern stupid names like "Crypto.com Arena". Those who pay the money and/or give the orders get to choose the name, and they like putting their own names on things.

In Seattle we have the "Climate Pledge Arena"

I’m hoping to get that changed to “Lord Sandwich Arena”

Only when you forget that "sandwich" was a name of a place first (and the person with a title associated with it ". Putting stuff between bread is named after a person and may well have been poking fun at him originally.

The bigger question is if making a Sandwich is considered Cooking.

Slow clap

The even bigger question is, does a hot dog count as a sandwich?

It's clearly an Usonian Taco.

In case you were unaware:

http://cuberule.com has solved this question definitively.

Even better:

    "Sir Osis of Liver"

Hey at least it wasn’t Boaty McBoatface

At that time the Royal Navy had in excess of 500 active ships and creating names must have taken some effort - there was a HMS Terrible and HMS Fanny.

> HMS Terrible

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/terrible

3. exciting terror, awe, or great fear; dreadful; awful.

4. formidably great.

I think it's a perfectly suitable name for a warship. The notion of "terrible" describing the inferior quality of something is a much more recent meaning, I believe.

Yeah, but compare "HMS Fanny" to "HMS Indefatigable."

Especially considering the British colloquial usage of "fanny" I think someone was in a particularly good mood that day.

That one I have no explanation for.

Don’t forget HMS Cockchafer, Spanker, and Tickler.

The dreadnought class of warships have the best moniker.

Hey, I resemble that remark.

The Endeavor is not to be confused with Shackleton's ship the Endurance (as I had in my mind), which went down after getting mangled by pack ice and never got the chance to be officially renamed the "Lord Hamburger".

Maybe they did a public poll to name the vessel...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com