Talk:HMS Carcass (1759)

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Military history: Maritime / British / European / Early Modern

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A fact from HMS Carcass (1759) appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 August 2008, and was viewed approximately 834 times (disclaimer) (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that while serving aboard HMS Carcass as a midshipman on an Arctic expedition, a young Horatio Nelson is reported to have chased a polar bear?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2008/August.

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The HMS Carcass? How drunk were the sailors who came up with a name like that for a ship? Did it have a sister ship, the Corpse? Daniel Case (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

A "Carcass" is a type of shot used in cannon; it fits within the convention that bomb vessels were named after volcanoes or explosive devices. In fact the word Carcass has quite a few alternative meanings of which "body" is one. By the way, your own name (CASE) was also a similar type of ammunition! --APRCooper (talk) 19:57, 31 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Though interestingly there is a link back to the human body in the type of shot. The Carcass (projectile) was so named because its construction left it with the appearance of having ribs poking through its sides, like on a decaying 'carcass'. Other bombships were named Explosion, or Blast, whilst fireships included Flame and Blaze. Benea (talk) 21:49, 31 July 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ah, I wondered if it was some rare usage of the word. I somehow didn't think that's what they really meant (Though I could easily imagine naming a warship the HMS Corpsemaker, though a name like that would probably inspire the enemy to go out of their way to sink it). Daniel Case (talk) 16:41, 1 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

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