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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

Amusing that the page for ships called HMS Enterprise linked to from the USS Enterprise page points out that the name came originally from the French!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Enterprise

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I always thought the carrier was named after Enterprise, PA since the US Navy usually names cruisers after medium sized cities and the earlier carriers were converted cruiser hulls.

Except there is no such place. Perhaps you're thinking of Intercourse, PA?

Oh interesting, I didn't know that. It's an even older name than I thought!

And the actual word is French too...

...although the French spell it with an extra "r". And they had more ships that were named Entreprenant(e) (Enterprising) than Entreprise...

Indeed they did - all the way back to 1672:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_ship_Entreprenant

> .although the French spell it with an extra "r".

We don't:

    enterprise
    entreprise

It's not "entrerprise" (that'd be an additional 'r').

It's not totally unlike "center", which is "centre" in french and also "centre" in UK english (but pronounced "center", unless I'm mistaken).

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