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Ask-A-Linguist - Message details
Subject: Ellipses in Countries' Names
Question:
Hello,

As you surely know, a very popular way of referring to the United States of America is the phrase ''the States.'' First, I would like you to tell me whether this is grammatically incorrect (I believe it is not so).

Secondly, and more to the point of why I'm submitting my question, I would like to know whether it's incorrect to referr to my country, the Dominican Republic, as ''the Dominican'' (I think it is correct, since it seems to be correct to call the US 'the States').

I was somehow told that if one were to make any ellipsis in the name of my country, the ellipsis would be of the adjective ''Dominican'' and not of the common noun ''republic'', but I disagree. I know that some might say that the usage of ''the Dominican'' could lead to confusion with the island of Dominica, but that is wrong for two reasons:

1) The stress in the adjective Dominican when it refers to my country, the Dominican Republic, is in the syllable ''mi'' whereas the stress when referring to Dominica is in the syllable ''ni.''

2) There wouldn't be any need to refer to Dominica with an adjective, since it already has a proper name to distinguish itself, whereas the Dominican Republic needs the common name ''Republic'' to distinguish itself, unless of course one uses the determined article, which is my main point.

As an illustration (and not as a way of dictating the rules of my mother tongue, Spanish, in English), in Spanish we may say ''En Dominicana la gente es muy amable'' omitting the word Republic. Think about it, what does the word ''republic'' tells us about the singularity, unicity or geographical location of a nation? It only informs us about its political organization. I think that for that reason the US are called America, because it's in the American continent and not in Europe. Settlers simplified their naming of the country where they lived by calling it by the name of the continent. I know that some might argue that the US calls itself America because of the politic of Monroe, but I find that argument silly.

I hope I’ve been articulate enough to get my point across and I would really like to read the opinion of an expert

Thank you in advance

Reply:
Calling the Dominican Republic 'the Dominican' would be like calling the United States 'the United' (which would make it sound like a football club, rather than a country, to me!). Country names have to be nouns, not adjectives (Finland vs Finnish, the Netherlands, etc.). You could call it 'the Republic' (some republics are informally known as that, including Ireland and Singapore) but of course there are many 'republics' so it would not be distinctive at an international level.

The USA has an unusually large number of names, which have different political connotations ('America' is a problem because of all the other countries in the continent), but many countries have alternative names or nick names (I am in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, UK, (Great) Britain).

But I can't think of any country that is formally or informally named by an adjectival part of its name. 'Dominicana' looks good for a name, though....

Anthea

Reply From: Anthea Fraser Gupta    click here to access email
Date: Jul-20-2006
Other Replies:
  1. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names Susan Fischer    (Jul-20-2006)
  2. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names Robert A Papen    (Jul-20-2006)
  3. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names Joseph F Foster    (Jul-20-2006)
  4. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names Geoffrey Sampson    (Jul-21-2006)
  5. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names Elizabeth J Pyatt    (Jul-21-2006)
  6. Re: Ellipses in Countries' Names James L Fidelholtz    (Jul-21-2006)
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