IPB

Welcome Guest ( Log In | Register )

> Country names and grammar, What the hell is the adjective form?
Penta
post Oct 8 2009, 03:02 AM
Post #1


Shooting Target
****

Group: Members
Posts: 1,978
Joined: 26-February 02
From: New Jersey, USA
Member No.: 500



Okay. A question that suddenly arose in my mind during a boring bus ride today.

What the hell is the adjective form of UCAS? Or CAS? Or Tir Tairngire? (Or worse, Tir na Nog)

It's a common complaint I have about sci-fi (or fantasy) country/state names - there's no allowance for non-noun forms.

To wit, in English there's usually an adjective form of a country name. The USA gets "American", the UK "British", Saudi Arabia "Saudi". And so on and so forth.

Except with future countries. FASA/FanPro/CGL made it worse by creating countries where both could conceivably use the same damn adjective (see UCAS and CAS), or where the name isn't in any real language, so we can't even derive the adjective form.

For UCAS:

"UCASian" is like "USAian", a horrific mangling of the language for political correctness. "Canadian-American" has the problem of being rather unwieldy and sounding more like a personal descriptor.

It actually gets no better a lot worse with corporations being nationalities, now, of a sort.

Are you a "Shiawasian"? A "Saeder-Kruppian"?

Gah.

I can be liberal on many things, but (and maybe it's me) this drives me batty.
Go to the top of the page
 
+Quote Post

Posts in this topic
- Penta   Country names and grammar   Oct 8 2009, 03:02 AM
- - wind_in_the_stones   UCASers will still be "American". We w...   Oct 8 2009, 03:30 AM
- - Ancient History   QUOTE What the hell is the adjective form of UCAS?...   Oct 8 2009, 03:31 AM
|- - rob   QUOTE (Ancient History @ Oct 7 2009, 10:3...   Oct 8 2009, 03:54 AM
- - Wacky   I'd just go with "United Canadian" f...   Oct 8 2009, 03:58 AM
- - underaneonhalo   You can call us CASsers "rebs". We don...   Oct 8 2009, 07:14 AM
- - AK404   Regionalism and history sets in, actually. Take U...   Oct 8 2009, 10:08 AM
|- - rob   QUOTE (AK404 @ Oct 8 2009, 06:08 AM) If y...   Oct 8 2009, 03:08 PM
- - AK404   Weird. I'm fairly certain I didn't hit ...   Oct 8 2009, 10:08 AM
- - Chrysalis   This can be a nightmare with the United Kingdom fo...   Oct 8 2009, 01:20 PM
- - BishopMcQ   Rob - I believe the proper term would be Lush, hic...   Oct 8 2009, 04:05 PM
- - Warlordtheft   QUOTE (Penta @ Oct 7 2009, 11:02 PM) What...   Oct 8 2009, 04:39 PM
- - TBRMInsanity   UCAS -> American CAS -> Confederate CFS -...   Oct 8 2009, 05:04 PM
- - PBI   What Canadians in UCAS call themselves would be re...   Oct 8 2009, 07:02 PM
|- - TBRMInsanity   QUOTE (PBI @ Oct 8 2009, 01:02 PM) What C...   Oct 8 2009, 07:26 PM
|- - PBI   QUOTE (TBRMInsanity @ Oct 8 2009, 04:26 P...   Oct 8 2009, 07:35 PM
- - Marwynn   I thought they were referred to as CanAms or Canam...   Oct 8 2009, 07:49 PM
- - Penta   This all came about, FWIW, because I was stuck ima...   Oct 8 2009, 09:06 PM
|- - TBRMInsanity   QUOTE (Penta @ Oct 8 2009, 03:06 PM) ...   Oct 8 2009, 09:57 PM
|- - Chrysalis   QUOTE (Penta @ Oct 9 2009, 12:06 AM) This...   Oct 8 2009, 10:05 PM
|- - Dikotana   QUOTE (Chrysalis @ Oct 8 2009, 06:05 PM) ...   Oct 9 2009, 03:57 AM
- - Nath   "American", "Indian", "Co...   Oct 9 2009, 08:08 AM


Reply to this topicStart new topic

 



RSS Lo-Fi Version Time is now: 26th February 2026 - 02:38 PM

Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.