"Stewart Hunting Ancient" or "Ancient Hunting Stewart"? The grammar Nazi weighs in...

[Barb T]

Hi all,

To me, it sounds really weird and ungrammatical when people refer to a tartan as, e.g., "Stewart Hunting Ancient". Hunting Stewart and Ancient Hunting Stewart are 2 variations much in the same way that Red Oak and White Oak are. You wouldn't say Oak Red instead of Red Oak. Or Oriole Baltimore instead of Baltimore Oriole. Or Yankees New York instead of New York Yankees.

So why would you call a tartan Stewart Hunting Ancient? or Ferguson Weathered? Shouldn't it be Weathered Ferguson and Dress Ferguson and Ancient Ferguson? "Ancient", "Weathered", and "Dress" are all adjectives, and adjectives come before the nouns they modify.

I recognize that, in an alphabetical tartan list, it makes sense to have all of the variants for each listed under the main name, but the list should actually be punctuated to show that the second word modifies the first and not vice versa:

Ferguson, Modern
Ferguson, Ancient

or

Ferguson (Modern)
Ferguson (Ancient)

The tartan name, spoken by itself, should, in my estimation, be "Modern Ferguson", "Ancient Ferguson", etc.

OK - the grammar Nazi has gotten that off her chest. Do any of you agree??

[Ruanaidh]

OK - the grammar Nazi has gotten that off her chest. Do any of you agree??

I agree 100%

[Grizzled Ian]

Hi Barb,
Never really thought about it. I think I'm used to having the terms trailing, but what you say does make sense to us who engage in discourse on tartans, because we know that 'modern', 'ancient', 'weathered', 'reproduction' and 'weavers'' refer to different colour palettes.
To most other folk, these terms placed out the front may convey implications about the age of a kilt, or perhaps the (ab)use the material has endured. For example, "weathered Black Watch" and "Black Watch weathered".
But are the tartan descriptors (Black Watch, Cameron of Erracht, Rose, PSD, Australia, Scottish Odyssey, etc, ad inf) substantives in their own right, or are they adjectival, I wonder? If they are adjectival, then the five terms are more properly performing an adverbial role, because they modify adjectival terms, and you would need to approach the phenomenon from a different chapter of the grammar nazi's handbook.
Anyway, the linguists these days probably argue that there is no such thing as grammar, now that the world has rid itself of inflected languages. (Chortle)

[Pleater]

Now being biological it should be ancient hunting tartan. When confronted by a sample saying it that way would give you more time to think - should that be necessary.

However - tartan name, variant, colour pallet would be the way to catalogue the swatches.

I often advise 'do what works best' and maybe this is another application of the adage.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[ForresterModern]

Well I have to weigh in her if only personal survival an recognition. I honestly do not want to be known as "Modern Forrester" aroun the boards.

Actually as regards Forrester from my knowledge it has always (well for the 50 or so years it has been around) been known as Forrester Modern (funny because according to the folks at the clan society when the tartan was designed and registered it was decided to only have it woven in ancient colors, so technically it should be Ancient Forrester or Forrester Ancient, but somebody screwed up the paperwork and it registered as Forrester Modern. Personally I would love to see it woven in truly Modern colors myself). Forrester Hunting they got right (I have never seen it referred to as Hunting Forrester) and I am not aware of it ever having been woven in anything but Modern colorway. Might have to play around on Scotweb's tartan generator a bit to see what some other options might look like, although the cost of getting one custom woven just for the sake of having a truly unique variation of the family tartans might outweigh the novelty of it.

Please don't make me conform to grammatical rules for my own screen name---I promise I won't try to start a revolution or anything against the grammar establishment.

[BBNC]

Both ways of putting it seem to more or less come around to the same thing, although I believe the tartan's name should be first, and then the modifiers. Every rule has exceptions.

[unixken]

When I look at tartans to decide on my next kilt, I tend to think "Buchanan" first. Then within the selection of Buchanan tartans, I consider whether I want the primary, hunting, old-sett, or other variant, and then I select my colourway (ancient, weathered, etc.)

Since most references are cataloged in that order, and since I don't normally begin my searches by saying "You know, I think I'd like to pick out a weathered tartan... let's see what weathered tartans are out there", I tend to think "Buchanan Hunting Ancient."

Post-Script: It just occurred to me. In my example, perhaps "Hunting" is the tartan, and "Buchanan" is the modifier ("Which hunting tartan did you get? The Buchanan!). In which case, we have a clan name modifier preceding a variant name (the term being modified.)

It's early in the morning, I've not yet had my coffee. My brain hurts.

[Barb T]

Since most references are cataloged in that order, and since I don't normally begin my searches by saying "You know, I think I'd like to pick out a weathered tartan... let's see what weathered tartans are out there", I tend to think "Buchanan Hunting Ancient."

True, but that's also how you'd look up birds in a list - you'd look up "sparrow", and then there would be subordinate listings for "house", "chipping", etc. But you'd never say, in a sentence, I just saw a "sparrow chipping". So, my argument stands. If you're looking it up in a list, then you start with the main tartan name. If you're using it in a sentence, the adjectives should come first!

[unixken]

True, but that's also how you'd look up birds in a list - you'd look up "sparrow", and then there would be subordinate listings for "house" "chipping", etc. But you'd never say, in a sentence, I just saw a "sparrow chipping". So, my argument stands. If you're looking it up in a list, then you start with the main tartan name. If you're using it in a sentence, the adjectives should come first!

I understand completely. I struggled with such rules of sentence construction in my first year of Spanish, where the order generally *is* the object first, followed by the modifier (the reverse of English.) I eventually got past that mental road-block in Spanish classes, and perhaps that makes it a bit easier today, to concede "Clan, Variant, Colourway" as an accepted syntax, in the context of kilts.

Something about "ancient old sett Buchanan" just sounds redundant or confused, to me. I dunno. :: shrugs ::

(Yeah I know... is it any less redundant than "Buchanan Old Sett Ancient"? LOL)

[Barb T]

In terms of formal usage, when we march into the competition circle, they announce us by saying, "The next band is the Mohawk Valley Frasers Grade 4 wearing the Modern MacGillivray tartan." Not the MacGillivray Modern tartan. And when our daughter used to compete as a Highland dancer, everyone I knew 10 years ago said, my kilt is Dress Purple Cunningham, or Dress Ferguson, not Cunnnham Purple Dress.

And I would say "Ancient Buchanan, Old Sett".