Why did the USS Richard amphibious ship have such a weird name?
First of all, we know that Bonhomme Richard is an amphibious assault ship, and the US military’s naming rules for such ships are generally divided into two types. One is named after places where the Marine Corps fought tough battles, such as LHA-1 Tawara, LHA-2 Saipan, LHD-7 Iwo Jima and other World War II battles, as well as World War I battles such as LHA-3 Bello Forest. . The second is to inherit the names of earlier ships, such as LHD-1 Wasp, LHD-2 Essex, and LHD-3 Karsaki.
It is worth noting that these names were not only used once. For example, the ID of the Wasp had gone from sailboat to aircraft carrier for more than 200 years before LHD-1, and had changed 10 owners. And Bonhomme Richard falls into this category. The original Bonhomme Richard, whose real name was the Duke of Dilla, was a sail-powered merchant ship owned by the French East India Company. In 1779, in order to help the United States fight against the British, France bought the ship from the East India Company and gave it to American independent armed forces, then converted into armed privateers.
When naming it, the American Independence Armed Forces considered that it was a gift from the French and wanted to give it a name that has some roots in both France and the United States. Consider that one of the authors of the American Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin, was also the ambassador to France.
Franklin once published a series of pamphlets called "Poor Charles' Almanac" between 1732 and 1758, which covered various proverbs or scientific principles of the time, and the French version The Poor Richard-Richard Sanders in Poor Richard's Almanac was replaced by the French Bonhomme Richard, so the ship was also named Bonhomme Richard.
However, the No. 1 Richard sank on September 23, 1779. During World War II, the American CV31 aircraft carrier was also named Good Man Richard. It was finally deregistered in 1989 and dismantled in 1992. untie. In the same year, the LHD-6 amphibious assault ship won the title of Bonhomme Richard.
Then there is the issue of semantic translation. The French Bon (good) Homme (person) seems to have nothing to do with the English Poor (poor, pitiful), but Bonhomme has a layer of "honesty". The meaning of "person" and "old man" is semantically close to poor in English.
So...if the so-called Good Richard is translated according to the context, it would be more reasonable to call him Honest Richard. But it doesn't matter... Anyway, no matter whether he is a good person or an honest person, he is now "waste" Richard.