As a retired Merchant Navy officer can I please ask all your reporters not to use ships' names as adjectives (Scotland the Great: 10 amazing walks and cycle trails, News, February 26). Jane Wright talks of the "Sir Walter Scott paddle steamer" (it's not even a paddle steamer by the way, it has a propeller).
Putting the name first is like saying the green liner, the rusty submarine etc. Years ago The Glasgow Herald was the "go to" paper for information on shipbuilding and ship movements on the Clyde but I suspect most of your staff have never seen a ship.
Other new affectations of the iPhone generation are "a defeat to" in football and just in the last couple of weeks, "shipping goals". Did Napoleon have a defeat to Wellington at Waterloo? Ships are described as shipping water when bad weather brings seas onto the decks. I know that language evolves, but sometimes when "it ain't broke don't fix it".
David Fyfe
Arbroath
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