Category talk:Ship's doctors

Speedy declined on 3 March 2019[edit]

Moved from Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy

– -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 20:45, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Category:Ship's doctors to Category:Ships' doctors – C2A. Doctors of more than one ship. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:53, 15 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
There is a larger issue here—namely, that the distinction between this category (surgeons on civilian vessels) and Category:Naval surgeons (surgeons on military vessels) seems contrived, considering ship's doctor and naval surgeon are synonymous. I am not sure how best to resolve it but wanted to point it out. -- Black Falcon ^(talk) 19:53, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
They're not synonymous and it's not in any way contrived. A naval surgeon is an officer in a "military" navy (although some countries use "Merchant Navy" to refer to their civilian fleets, the unqualified "navy" is generally accepted to mean a military organisation; we wouldn't describe a civilian ship's captain as a "naval officer", for instance). A ship's doctor is a doctor on any ship. All naval surgeons have probably been a ship's doctor at some time (although not all naval medical officers serve aboard ship all the time - some serve in shore establishments and naval hospitals), so it's a subcat, but medical officers on merchant ships are not naval surgeons. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose; I know they are not all doctors of the same ship, but each is only doctor of one ship at a time. It's a rank, "Ship's doctor", and the plural only needs to pluralise the noun "doctor" not the possessive adjective "Ship's". – Fayenatic London 22:12, 16 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I can't see how that's good English. "Ship's doctors" would imply more than one doctor on the same ship, not maritime medical officers as a whole. And it's not a rank; it's a position. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:09, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose @Necrothesp, I agree with @FL. This is a plural of the compound term "ship's doctor". And whether it's a rank or position is immaterial. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:49, 28 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.