PapaBear: no offense taken. I was being sarcastic in my own way, refering to your use of the word “we” in “…a term that we invented!”.
And regarding the “objection” to your usage of the term “United States”, let me say once again that we do not object to it. No reason why.
You might be right about our resenting your use of the term “American”, but it was Keeves who brought up the subject of "…why aren’t they (mexicans) bothered by America’s use of “United States”? And then you stated: I don’t see how they can object to us using a term that we invented!, therefore my previous post.
And regarding the coinage of the term “United States” by Thomas Jefferson, I haven’t found any indication to the contrary, actually I tend to agree with your assumption. I’ll let you know if I find anything.
PapaBear, I don’t think that the Dutch “renamed” themselves The Netherlands. That entire region has been known as the “low lands” for well over a thousand years. In fact, the speakers of Dutch (Nederlanse) continue to use the word for all such speakers, including the Belgian Flemings. It was actually the outsiders who began referring to the inhabitants as Hollanders after Spain succeeded in bringing Flanders back under Spanish rule.
Bob T: I’m not sure what you’re asking but, El Salvador is the countrys proper name. It means “The Savior” in Spanish. That’s why its indexed under “e” because thats its proper name.
In addition to the already mentioned El Salvador, there is The Bahamas, The Central African Republic, The Czech Republic, The Dominican Republic, The Marshall Islands, The Philippines, The Solomon Islands, The United Arab Emirates, The United Kingdom, and The Vatican City.
Okay, that’s a pretty good list. Just one last thing to say about the Ukraine thing – not that I care (because it’s not my country), but it seems a little odd to not want your country to be called THE Frontierland (or Boarderland) (because it implies its the on the border with Russia) but not mind it being called simply “Frontierland” or “Boarderland,” which to me still implies the same thing, only without the article.
As the geography fans among you will know, our North West Territories recently split in two, and there was a long drawn out debate as to what the name of the eastern portion of the former territory would be.
In the end, a name in the Inuit language of Inuktitut was chosen: “Nunavut” (Noon-ah-voot), which means ‘our land’. However, there was a sizable minority that had wanted the new territory to be call “Bob.” Now that’s Canadian!
By the way, the population density of this area (1.9 million sq. kilometres) is 0.01/sq kilometre.
I did know what the translation of “El Salvador” was, but what I was asking was why is that article considered part of the name of the country, but not in “Los Estados Unidos de Mexico.”
A person from El Salvador is Salvadoran (in Engligh) or a salvadoreno(a) (with a ~ over the n).
When I was a kid, my Scott’s World Stamp Book had the country listed under “S”.
the ukraine thing:
As pointed out, russian (nor ukrainian) has a definate article (ie no word “the”). However, there are two different words for “in” (phonetically: “v” and “nah”). I’m a little hazy on my russian (out of practice) but one tends to refer to a concrete destination (I’m going to be in france) while the other is a more amorphous area that is inside something larger (I’m going to be in the countryside).
The use of one over the other became a nationalist debate when Ukraine stopped being part of something larger (USSR). BTW, we were taught that the meaning of Ukraine in russian means “the outskirts” or even “Out in the sticks.”
The whole debate does not have a close analog in English since we don’t have two words for “in”. Russian students, check me on this. My russian instructor was a russian immigrant whose family was from Moscow.
rmariamp
BobT: Look up the official names of the countries on any encyclopedia.
The official name for México is “Estados Unidos Mexicanos”, not “Los Estados Unidos de México”.
The official name for El Salvador is “República de El Salvador”.
Most official country names comprise a whole “title” indicating the political status of the country: Republic, United States, Kingdom, etc. Not always the popular name is the official name, as is the case for Canada, for example.
Just one last thing to say about the Ukraine thing – not that I care (because it’s not my country), but it seems a little odd to not want your country to be called THE Frontierland (or Boarderland) (because it implies its the on the border with Russia) but not mind it being called simply “Frontierland” or “Boarderland,” which to me still implies the same thing, only without the article.