Semantics: Multi-Crew

Dbrn47

Dbrn47
Disclaimer: As described by the title, this is a highly semantics based thread. If you do not care, move on and I will be able to assume that you, in fact, do not care.

Well, who does care? Me, obviously, its sort of bothered me since the first time I've seen it used.

Why? Why not? Is there something else I should bring up? Perhaps another thread discussing what is and isn't amazing about the game currently or how the new content update is taking forever? Right.

The definition of Crew and how it is used:

crew
kro͞o/

noun

noun: crew; plural noun: crews


  • 1.
    a group of people who work on and operate a ship, boat, aircraft, spacecraft, or train.
    • a group of people working on a ship, aircraft, etc., other than the officers.
      "the ship's captain and crew may be brought to trial"
      synonyms:sailors, mariners, hands, ship's company, ship's complement "the ship's crew"
    • US
      the sport of rowing a racing shell.

  • 2.
    a group of people who work closely together.
    "an ambulance crew"
    synonyms:team, group, company, unit, corps, party, gang "a crew of cameramen and sound engineers"
    • informalderogatory
      a group of people associated in some way.
      "a crew of assorted computer geeks"
      synonyms:crowd, group, band, gang, mob, pack, troop, swarm, herd, posse; Moreinformalbunch, tribe
      "they were a motley crew"
    • USinformal
      a group of rappers, breakdancers, or graffiti artists performing or operating together.




verb
verb: crew; 3rd person present: crews; past tense: crewed; past participle: crewed; gerund or present participle: crewing
1.
provide (a craft or vehicle) with a group of people to operate it.
"normally the boat is crewed by 5 people"


  • act as a member of a crew, subordinate to a captain.
    "I've never crewed for a world-famous yachtsman before"
A crew is a body or a class of people who work at a common activity, generally in a structured or hierarchical organization.

Crew is used colloquially to refer to a small, tight-knit group of friends or associates engaged in criminal activity.

Crew also refers to the sport of rowing, where teams row competitively in racing shells.

The definition of multi- (or multiple)

multi-

ˈməltē/
combining form
prefix: multi-

  • more than one; many, especially variegated.
    "multicolor"
Therefore, Multi-Crew would be equivalent to more than one crew, by definition. More than one team. How it is used in Elite, it merely means more than 1 player within a ships crew.

Do enough Googling and you will come across areas of real life where the term is also used to refer to more than 1 person. Namely, getting a Mult-Crew Pilot License from the ICAO. "Multi Crew Co-Operation course is essential to have completed in order to fly as an airline crew member in a Multi Pilot Aircraft (MPA)" That brings up a good point about redundancy... Why was this done? It even includes Multi-Pilot in the description of the license.

Interestingly enough, this is the only real world example I have been able to find in my short search that exists. It is not actually defined elsewhere, probably because it is in fact very redundant when it comes to trying to describe a crew of many persons. Why? Because crew is the proper word to describe that already.

Interested in knowing why this was decided as the word to describe multiple players on a player ship. Thank you for tolerating this first world problem of mine. :p
 

Kurdran

Kurdran
Your post actually had me searching for "multi-crew" related sources, and I found this! (spoiler: it's about pirates!)

I also completely agree with you, it is redundant.


Have some rep, good sir. [up]
 

Dbrn47

Dbrn47
Oooh, interesting. I'm having a hard time determining what is meant by it there though. Is it trying to mean a crew of pirates or many crews of pirates? Fleet was used, which is also a good word to describe multiple crews (ships) of pirates. Nice find.
 

Kurdran

Kurdran
I think it's referring to "crew" as the group of people in a single ship, and using "multi-crew" to describe many pirate ships teaming up to raid.
 

Julio Montega

Julio Montega
You are missing out a notion:

When player Bob is captain of ship A but crewman of ship B,
and player Dillan is crewman of ship A but captain of ship B,
both are crew but to multiple ships.
Hence the term "multi-crew" reflecting the dynamical
change of crewing playerships i guess.
 
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Dbrn47

Dbrn47
Sure, I suppose you could look at it that way. However, you are technically not part of multiple crews simultaneously as you cannot fly, pilot or crew, both ships at the same time. You are actually leaving your ship (and crew) to be part of a crew in another, albeit temporarily. Even still, crews would suffice as it is the plural form of crew (which already describes multiple people). [haha]

Bob and Dillan are a part of many crews that involve Ship A, B, C and D. (Even though I said technically you are not part of multiple crews simultaneously [wacky]).
 
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Jesse30

Jesse30
The real question is. Who is going to be part of the crew? and who is going to the Captain? I will tell what, when I get off from work I like to go home drink a beer and fly my ship. Do you really think I am going to be taking orders aside from my wife after I get off from work?
 
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Kayweg

Kayweg
Julio Montega said:
You are missing out a notion:

When player Bob is captain of ship A but crewman of ship B,
and player Dillan is crewman of ship A but captain of ship B,
both are crew but to multiple ships.
Hence the term "multi-crew" reflecting the dynamical
change of crewing playerships i guess.
Click to expand...

Weeeelll, yes, i see what you're getting at. What you are doing though is calling a single crew member a "crew". And i guess (not being a native english speaker), that it may actually be used that way in the day-to-day use of the english language.
"I am crew on HMS xyz" for example.
I still think the OP has a (semantical) valid point though, admitting i'm on thin ice here.

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Jesse30 said:
The real question is. Who is going to be part of the crew? and who is going to the Captain? I will tell what, when I get off from work I like to go home drink a beer and fly my ship. Do you really think I am going to be taking orders aside from my wife after I get off from work?
Click to expand...

No, that's not the real question, this thread is about semantics. ;)
The thread you are looking for is here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=241366
 
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777Driver

777Driver
Dbrn47 said:
"Multi Crew Co-Operation course is essential to have completed in order to fly as an airline crew member in a Multi Pilot Aircraft (MPA)" That brings up a good point about redundancy... Why was this done? It even includes Multi-Pilot in the description of the license.

Interestingly enough, this is the only real world example I have been able to find in my short search that exists. It is not actually defined elsewhere, probably because it is in fact very redundant when it comes to trying to describe a crew of many persons. Why? Because crew is the proper word to describe that already.
Click to expand...

Well, as already stated, crew is used to describe a single person or the entire crew - 'Only one crew member is onboard the aircraft' 'The entire crew is onboard the aircraft'

Multi crew simply describes the capability of the aircraft, or in this case spaceship, multiple crew members are required. As far as training goes, it's all linked to crew resource management (CRM) It's not about redundancy, focus is on teaching crew members to speak up, control their emotions and interact efficiently.

The course is intended to show employers that the crew members can work well in a team, especially when under pressure. It's a big deal in the industry.


Two classic examples - KLM Tenerife crash, The fleet captain was famous in the airline and known to have quite an ego, made multiple mistakes and took off without clearance, the other crew members were afraid to speak up, he ended up killing 583 people when his aircraft collided with a pan am jet on the runway.

Gulf Air 072 (I knew some of the air hostesses) Again the Captain was incredibly arrogant, belittling the first officer through the whole flight, the captain got disoriented during landing (somatogravic illusion) The first officer remained silent, aircraft was flown into the ocean, killing all 143 people onboard.
 
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Yaffle

Volunteer Moderator
Yaffle
Isn't it similar to how a PIN (personal identification number) is often described as a PIN number?
 

777Driver

777Driver
davedf said:
Multi crew is an abbreviation of multiplayer crew (as opposed to npc crew)
Click to expand...

Not too sure about that, would be interesting if that was the case. As far as any other title like Star Citizen or the countless multi crew modules for desktop sims, the term is simply taken from the real world. Multi Crew = capability to have more than one crew member.
 

777Driver

777Driver
Kurdran said:
Yes, but it's redundant, which is the point the OP was making.
Click to expand...

Yes, I understand the point the op is making. I was simply referring to the part about multiplayer, it would still be multi crew even if our additional crew members were AI. The term is used in the real world to describe an aircraft or spaceship that is operated by more than one person, it is either single seat or multi crew.
 
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Dbrn47

Dbrn47
777Driver said:
Yes, I understand the point the op is making. I was simply referring to the part about multiplayer, it would still be multi crew even if our additional crew members were AI. The term is used in the real world to describe an aircraft or spaceship that is operated by more than one person, it is either single seat or multi crew.
Click to expand...

So is the word crew, by itself, by definition, that is where the redundancy comes in. The definition of crew does not mean 1 person, it means a team of people, according to our dictionaries. Multiple crews, would be crews, you can say multiple crews to describe many crews, but this would be separate groups of people. Though I understand we make up new words all the time and add definitions, Multi-Crew, while it has been used in the real world, seems very rare and not a widely accepted alternative to the word crew. There are plenty of synonyms for crew, but multi-crew simply isn't one of them.

By yourself, you are the pilot of the ship. When you add other people to the ship to work with you, you will have a crew aboard your ship. When you have several ships with crews (or pilots) aboard them, you have a wing. When you have multiple wings (or simply many ships), you will have a fleet. Using multi-wing to describe a the ships within the wing would be just as incorrect. The mistake being made here is calling the single pilot the ships crew, as again, 1 person does not make a crew.

Another example: Soldier > Squad > Platoon > Company > Battalion > Brigade. You would not say Multi-Squad to describe a Squad as Squad indicates multiple Soldiers, nor would you use Multi-Platoon to describe a Platoon, etc. You could, however, say that multiple Soldiers make up multiple Squads that make a Platoon.
 
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