Ships

Let’s talk about ships.

Sit down Capt’n, I don’t mean your ship. I mean RELATIONships, ‘ships for short. Where did I get the abbreviation? How can relationship become a verb? I.e, who do you ship more? Leonard/Penny? Rachel/Ross?
“Shamy?” (More like Sham-wow, amirite?)

Allow me to explain the Internet science behind the shipping phenomenon and subculture.

Simply put, ship is short for relationship, but fans and Internet dwellers mostly use the term in the verb form, “to ship” or “shipping.” Shipping only means, the act of pairing two characters into a relationship.
Used in the English (?) language, “ship” works as follows:

“I really ship Monica and Chandler!” says the happy-go-lucky F.R.I.E.N.D.S old-timer.
“I sort of liked shipping Monica and Richard instead,” replies the no doubt disappointed fan, once their ‘ship’ didn’t become ‘canon’ (that is, the relationship didn’t become an actuality within the show).
“I ship Howard and Bernadette so hard. They’re my OTP!” screams the Big Bang Theory follower from the 21^st century.
(OTP? One True Pairing. But learning the in’s and out’s of a “true pairing” would take a whole other article.)

And as if all this weren’t confusing enough for the first-time reader (I’ll make the manual soon), all relationship pairings have…”ship names.” Har har. Names are usually derived from combining the names of the two characters (think Brangelina), but in some cases, the combinations are better left un-fused.

The S.S.’s stand as follows:

Monica and Chandler: Monica/Chandler (the F.R.I.E.N.D.S fans stayed away from “Mandler” here)

Rachel and Ross: Rachel/Ross (Ross and Rachel make…”Rachel”)

Leonard and Penny: Leonard/Penny or Lenny

Sheldon and Amy: Shamy

Howard and Bernadette: Howard/Bernadette or Howardette

Marshall and Lily: Marshall/Lily, Marshmallow, or Lilypad (can we say, awww.)

Ted and The Mother: The Mothership (badumbsh)

Barney and Robin: Bro-Love (although I personally use Brobin for the bro-mention)

Just to name a few.
Which ship will you board? Are you a passenger of one, several, or a ship not listed? Leave your thoughts in the comments!