Talk:Fairey Swordfish

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Fairey Swordfish article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1

Military history: Aviation / Maritime / British / Dutch / European / World War II / Operation Majestic Titan Start‑class

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

Start

This article has been rated as Start-class on the project's quality scale.

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military aviation task force
	Maritime warfare task force
	British military history task force
	Dutch military history task force
	European military history task force
	World War II task force
	Operation Majestic Titan (Phase V)

Aviation: Aircraft

This article is within the scope of the Aviation WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.AviationWikipedia:WikiProject AviationTemplate:WikiProject Aviationaviation articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion not met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

This article is supported by the aircraft project.

"out moded"

Rush so let's get this straight, in 1937 they were just beginning to replace the Blackburn Shark with the new, more modern Fairy Swordfish. In 1939 the Swordfish was obsolete and outmoded. So an aircraft was good for about two years in the late 1930s? Idumea47b (talk) 14:27, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Plural form

The word 'fish' is often used as a plural form for the same word, but the correct plural form when discussing the animals is to append the suffix 'es'. 'Fish' should be correctly pluralised to 'fishes'. Common usage etc means that's not always the case. Likewise, the more correct plural form of the animal 'swordfish' is 'swordfishes', which really is a great aid to distinguishing singular from plural and is actually easy to use and not clunky, having used it.

However, this is not the animal which we are discussing, but rather a machine named for the individual animal.

Normal practice, however, seems to be to pluralise a machine's service name with 's' or less usually 'es' ('Halifaxes'). So, for example, the Vickers Vildebeest: Whilst a 'wildebeest' (the namesake animal, despite the 'v') is just as correctly described in plural as "a herd of wildebeest", yet the aircraft would be pluralised with an 's' suffix: "At the outbreak of the Second World War, 101 Vildebeests were still in service with the RAF".

So, more correctly (and anticipating that this discussion will be met with neither condescension or angry rejectionism, but will be at least considered or discussed on its own merits in a friendly manner), should the Fairey Swordfish be pluralised to 'Fairey Swordfishes', aiding the distinction between singular and plural? 2A00:23C7:3131:FE01:7C26:374:8921:9058 (talk) 17:06, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]