"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??