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Extraordinary edit
The article George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield contains the following sentence.
- He became an Engineer Extraordinary in 1744 and Engineer Ordinary in 1747 when he was stationed at Sheerness.
I had a vague idea what it meant, but thought it begged for a link to clarify it. Wikipedia has several occurrences of Engineer Extraordinary but only with the phrase Engineer Ordinary. However, by analogy with ships being laid up “in ordinary” I found an article with exactly that title.
Unfortunately, my understanding remains vague. My working definition is that it was fairly common for officers to serve as engineers, but they weren’t permanent assignments. So they were an Engineer Extraordinary. However, some officers subsequently obtained a permanent posting as an engineer so they became Engineer Ordinary.
Rather than flagging it for further explanation, I could make a link to what exists for lack of anything better. But it remains a vague concept for most readers. Can anyone clarify my understanding or, better yet, offer a citation?
I am posting this to both the Elliott and the In Ordinary articles. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 05:14, 25 February 2023 (UTC)