Indeed. I’ve never heard anyone pronounce Siam with less than two syllables. “Si-am.” The Thais say “Sa-yahm” with a short duration on the first syllable but still two discrete syllables. This is the first time I’ve encountered this bizarre one-syllable notion.
Hmm…Democratic Republic of the Congo?
edit: just saw your “federal”. Oops.
Me too! “United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru / Republic Dominican, Cuba, Caribbean, Greenland, El Salvador too!”
That’s because its not real.
Among native New Englanders, I usually hear the one-syllable pronunciation of Lowell, Massachusetts (slightly larger at #247). It rhymes with “bowl.”
My my my. Look at all the hanging Chads in this thread.
^Look! It’s a joke from the year 2000!
Without looking at the thread or a map I came up with:
France, Spain, Greece, Chad.
Now off to read the thread and find out if Chad is still (or ever was) a country.
ETA: Woohoo! I was right!
Greece, Spain, France, and Chad, with Laos a near miss.
Hell, 75% of the countries on Earth, I’d guess, have a “modifier” in them. Lands of the Uzbek, Land of the Roma, Land of the Finns, Land of the Deutsch, Northern Way, Land of the Fields (Poland), Land of the Somalis, Land of the Tanned (Mauritania), Rivers/Milled River/Crowning River (Peru, Uruguay, Paraguay), Little Islands, Southern Island, Ivory Coast, Central Nation (China), Land of the Rising Sun…
So if you think “Land of the Thai” counts as a country name, then you’ll have to add most of the world to your list.
Including England, which is really just Eng.
Greece
Spain
Zaire
dang, that name is extinct isn’t it?
Oh wait, are we walking one-syllable names as those countries are known in English? I’m pretty sure España is not a one syllable name…
Hell, I have no idea.
It’s not only extinct, it has two syllables.
So those WWI veterans who went around singing “over zaire”…?
thinking of miss universe and the globe, i can recall only three:
chad
france
wales
laos and spain don’t make it, right?
LOL - same here!
To be perfectly fair, however, one should consider the country’s name in its own language. What’s Chad’s native language?
France would still be France in French. Spain would be, I believe, Espana (with the little thingy above the ‘n’). Greece would be, what, Hellene or something?
It’s officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία) but it’s commonly called Hellada (Ελλάδα).
I got Chad instantly, then France and Spain a few minutes later, though I wasn’t 100% sure they counted France as a one-syllable word. Maybe two hours later I finally got Greece. Then I read the thread.
The reason why Wales isn’t included, of course, since it is in fact a one-syllable word, is that despite having officially the title of “country”, it is not an independent country, being part of the UK. Its relationship to the UK is in fact similar to the relationship Canada’s provinces, or the US or Australia’s states, have with the independent country they belong to, with some differences. Mainly that Canada, the US and Australia are federal states, which the UK isn’t really even when it’s experimenting with a model of devolution of powers. So Wales is less autonomous than the federal subjects of federal states.
Siam Sam’s acquaintance, I suppose, just believes his country is unique and cannot be in any way compared to any other country. Like many other people in this world, actually.
And I did think of Laos while I was thinking about the question, but I decided that it was pronounced LAY-os in English, which has two syllables. I have no problem believing that it has only one syllable in its national language. Zaire I would probably pronounce za-EERE, but in any case it’s not called that anymore.
Actually, he was English from London and not Welsh.
Yeah, by “his country” I meant the UK, not Wales. 