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.
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". – FayenaticLondon22:12, 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]
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.
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