Tintin Forums

Reading through the books, I have noticed that whenever a ship's name is used, like The Karaboudjan, it is written in capital letters.

Does anyone know the reason?

I suppose you mean capital letters can be seen not only on the ships' IMAGES, but in the TEXT bubbles that mention those ships?

Oh, I meant in the text bubbles.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a reference guide for writers, editors and publishers that defines grammar and text formatting rules.
It states that the name given to a single vehicle (such as a ship, train, aircraft or space craft) is to be italicized.
Either Hergé used capital letters in place of italics or the European standard was different when the Tintin books were written.

Moderator Note: The Chicago Manual, whilst being a popular choice as a style guide, is not the only such book, even in the U.S. (The Associated Press Stylebook is one used by many newspapers, Strunk & White's The Elements of Style (or simply "Strunk & White", as it is often called) is another more general guide).
Given the variances between U.S. and British English, it would have been an unusual selection to guide the emloyess of Methuen, who probably favoured something from this side of the Atlantic, such as "Fowler" (H.W. Fowler's eponymous Fowler's Modern English Usage) or The Complete Plain Words, by Sir Ernest Gowers.
The Grammatically Interested Tintinologist Team

That must be it, Duke Snowy, though I think the putting it in capitals makes it look messy. Maybe with the introduction of the new lettering we won't see it any more.

I just read Prisoners of the Sun, and noticed that the ship's name is in quotation marks.

Why wouldn't they be in capitals??

Moderator Note: Because it is unusual to mix text written in standard sentence style (of initial capital letter then lower-case characters) and all capitals; on the net especially it would be taken to be like SUDDENLY shouting!
It would be far more normal to have the name with initial capitals (Speedol Star, not SPEEDOL STAR). Furthermore, as mentioned above, it could be seen to be a title, rather than just a name, in which case inverted commas ("Speedol Star") or italics (Speedol Star) could be used.

Perhaps the thread is a little old, but I just came across a bit of information which might clarify why the ships' names are capitalized, so it is seems pertinent to pop it in here.

It seems that it is a convention recognized in maritime law.

The passage in question (which can be read in full here) tackles how a ship's name should be recorded, and points out that as they often come from other sources (e.g. using the names of people), they can be difficult to identify in among other prose.
It is thus suggested that a ship's name should be dealt with in one of four ways: 1) Double inverted commas (or quotation marks), which are used in Law Reports; 2) By capitalization, which, it is said is common in the shipping industry; 3) Italicization, which is said to be the method in literature and the press; and finally, 4) Underlining, used in literature which doesn't use italics.
So it can be taken that perhaps back in the days when shipping had a greated prominence in every-day life, people were used to such conventions, and understood that names of ships were often capitalized; it may even have imparted a note of verisimilitude to the text, making it seem more lifelike and real (in the same way in which putting in lots of technical gabble about guns and ammunition into James Bond books makes it seem more "real").