Usage
The term mother ship dates back to the nineteenth century whaling trade when small, fast ships were used to chase and kill whales. The dead meat from several boats was then brought back to the larger, slower ship for processing and storage until the return to land. This model enabled a far more efficient method of whaling. Though whaling is much lower-scale than in earlier days, the single large storage ship model is still used extensively by fishermen. Such ships are known today as factory ships.
In many languages, such as Chinese, Finnish and Japanese the word mother ship refers to an aircraft carrier; see 母艦 (literally "mother" + "warship").
The mother ship concept was used in moon landings performed in the 1960s. Both the unsuccessful American 1962 Ranger landers and the successful Soviet 1966 Luna landers were unmanned spherical capsules ejected at the last moment from mother ships that had carried them to the Moon and crashed onto its surface. In the manned Apollo program, astronauts in the lunar module separated from the command module in lunar orbit, descended to the lunar surface, and returned to dock in a lunar orbit rendezvous with the command module once more for a ride home to Earth.
Somalian pirates use motherships to extend the reach of their attacking speed boats into the Indian Ocean.
The White Knight I and White Knight II aircraft are examples of contemporary mother ships in aviation.
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Famous quotes containing the word usage:
“Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a lesbian.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1951)
“...Often the accurate answer to a usage question begins, “It depends.” And what it depends on most often is where you are, who you are, who your listeners or readers are, and what your purpose in speaking or writing is.”
—Kenneth G. Wilson (b. 1923)
“I am using it [the word ‘perceive’] here in such a way that to say of an object that it is perceived does not entail saying that it exists in any sense at all. And this is a perfectly correct and familiar usage of the word.”
—A.J. (Alfred Jules)