Talk:Wigtown
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[edit] Some tidying, please?
Some of the syntax here is really difficult to grasp; it almost sounds BabelFished, in parts. For example, about two-thirds of the way through the "history" section, it reads "Wigtown had two ports which some writers have asserted were closed at night to form a large cattle enclosure...The ports of the town were formed by projecting houses stretching across the street from both sides and a gate being placed in the centre. In the late nineteenth century, one of these projecting houses still stood at the site of the West Port, and was a thing, in his opinion, ‘anything but ornamental to the town’. The town council in 1761 decided that the ports were ‘hurtful to the place’ in that they ‘greatly incommode the carrying of corps of the deceased through the same’. Stone from the ports, which were ordered to be pulled down to there their foundations, was ordered to be stored in a most secure manner, so that ‘they may answer the uses of the burgh when they have the occasion’. In 1742 there is a reference to digging a well outside the west Port." What manner of "ports" are they referring to? The standard English usage of "port" (in the context of an area of a town) is "a place where ships load or unload", or take refuge. So how could the port of Wigtown be used as a cattle enclosure, unless the cattle floated in the sea? How could a port be formed by "projecting houses stretching across the street"? And how could a well have been dug "outside the west port" without it filling with saltwater? Finally, how could ports "greatly incommode the carrying of corps [sic] of the deceased through the (town)"? Clearly the WP entry's use of "port" is in error, and I suspect much more. If someone with some knowledge of Wigtown could rewrite the entry, I think it would benefit all who visited. Bricology 00:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
