| samivel
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| 101462. Tue Oct 10, 2006 3:22 am |
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| Search function? What be that, then? |
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| Flash
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| 101476. Tue Oct 10, 2006 4:00 am |
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| It's possible to set it up so that the listing toggles between alphabetical and chronological at the user's option, which ought to suit everyone. At the moment what seems to happen is that it's alphabetical the first time you look at it, then it reverts to chrono order after you've looked at a thread, with no user option either way. That's what happens on my machine, anyway. |
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| grizzly
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| 101588. Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:54 am |
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| same here |
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| Ameena
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| 101594. Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:02 am |
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| Mine seems to be stuck on Alphabetical, and I can't see any way of changing it back to "Most recent posts at the top". It's not so bad now, but once there are enough threads that it becomes two pages, it could get rather annoying... |
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| eggshaped
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| 101605. Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:12 am |
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| There is now a link at the top of the page which will put them in "most recent" order for you. |
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| Ameena
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| 101611. Tue Oct 10, 2006 8:26 am |
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| Okay that's cool :). Perhaps this thread should be stickied anyway since it's the "intro" thread to this section of the forum and therefore doesn't really fit into the alphabetical list of countries. |
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| Pyriform
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| 102136. Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:19 pm |
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| I guess it is 'stickied', as it now comes top in most-recent-first mode, but is still placed under 'The' in alphabetical mode. Perhaps it should be renamed 'A QI Countries Forum', so it will be top in either case. |
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| Teaspoon
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| 104526. Thu Oct 19, 2006 10:37 pm |
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Ok I'm a little new to this forum but The Yemen, The Dominican Republic, et al post is one of my pet hates.
The official names of:
"The Lebanon" are Lebanese Republic or Lebanon
"The Phillipines" are Republika ng Philipinas or Republic of Phillipines
"The Yemen" are Republic of Yemen or Yemen
To follow the trend it would be acceptable to call Ireland "The Ireland" or why not "The USA" instead of USA or simply "The UK"?
The definite article can be applied to almost every nation if you give it its full official name as this usually describes the type of country it is e.g. The Arab Rebublic of Egypt, Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or The Peoples Republic of China but it is not necessarily a part of the country's title.
Even regarding "The Netherlands" the offical name as already pointed out is Kingdom of The Netherlands but the official short version is just Netherlands.
Phew deep breath, easing of palpitations and my OCD has been fed and watered for the day. Sorry to have troubled you ;-) |
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| Gray
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| 104549. Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:52 am |
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I would say that 'The Netherlands' is a far more common name than simply 'Netherlands', which strikes English-speaking people as ungrammatical, probably because of the plural 'lands' in there.
Just about anywhere that is (or appears to be) lexically plural has a 'The' in front of its name in English. 'The Americas', 'The Philippines', 'The Galapagos Islands'.
'The Gambia' is interesting, though. According to Wikipedia, | Quote: | | The Gambia achieved independence on February 18, 1965, as a constitutional monarchy within the Commonwealth of Nations. On April 24, 1970, The Gambia became a republic following a referendum. (The word "The" became an official part of the name only upon independence.) |
I wonder why. More digging... |
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| Flash
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| 104551. Fri Oct 20, 2006 3:58 am |
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| Argentina ... but The Argentine. |
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| suze
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| 104571. Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:56 am |
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Which few people say anymore, although they did within living memory (for instance, in Ally's Tartan Army). Argentina is actually an adjective rather than a noun, which might explain why some English speakers used to consider it ungrammatical and use Argentine instead.
A couple of the others mentioned are mildly interesting too. While the long form Dutch name for the Netherlands is Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, in every day parlance it is known as Nederland - i.e. only one Netherland.
Philippines was originally an adjective plural - when the islands were conquered by Spain, the invaders named them Las Islas Felipinas i.e. the islands of King Felipe. However, in Filipino the word Pilipinas is considered to be a noun - and presumably a singular noun at that since the Filipino plural marker (manga) is not present.
Without even pausing to note that in speech we do say "The USA", can I just express pleasure that no-one has alleged there to be a country called "The Ukraine". As I have noted here before, that form is best avoided as Ukrainians don't like it.
Now, to find out why those Gambians are so keen on their definite article ... |
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| BondiTram
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| 104581. Fri Oct 20, 2006 5:35 am |
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| And does anybody call The Czech Republic 'Czechia' which seems far less clumsy to me? After all, the other half of its previous incarnation isn't usually referred to as The Slovak Republic, is it? |
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| Flash
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| 104666. Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:00 am |
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Q1: Where do Nigeriens live?
Q2: Where do Nigerians live?
Q3: How confused must they be? |
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| suze
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| 104668. Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:09 am |
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| BondiTram wrote: | | And does anybody call The Czech Republic 'Czechia' which seems far less clumsy to me? After all, the other half of its previous incarnation isn't usually referred to as The Slovak Republic, is it? |
I'd tend to agree with that, but it seems that people just don't want to call it Czechia. This from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Republic
"The Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1993 suggested that the name Czechia be an official alternative in all situations other than formal official documents and the full names of government institutions, but this has not caught on in English usage."
As for Flash's question the answers are, in no particular order, "very", "Nigeria" and "Niger". |
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| Flash
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| 104671. Fri Oct 20, 2006 10:23 am |
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| Especially as some Nigerians refer to Nigeria as "Naija". |
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