Geordi trying to hack Data into learning contractions by exploiting his ability to use possessives.
Edit: Ugh, why didn’t I use “It’s a beautiful ship” and stay in theme? Guess this is one of the drawbacks of starting with the punchline and building the joke backwards.
I don’t recall. I always assumed it was deliberate to further set him apart from the emotionally-unstable, ax-crazy Lore.