Gentile

Question

Hello.
I'd like to know where can I find a list of all the gentile of the countries. I have troubles with the singular and plural, some gentile use a plural form but not all.

But for now I'd like to know about these:

Englishman or english?
Spaniard or spanish?
Both girls are italians or italian?

MrPedantic · Accepted Answer

Hello Latin

By 'gentile', do you mean 'nationals' or 'peoples'? ('genti'? 'gentes'?)

If so...I'm not sure where you'd find a list. But with your examples:

1. Englishman and Englishwoman now sound a little old-fashioned; it's best to rephrase where possible, and say e.g.

a) I went out with an English girl last summer. Now she won't stop writing to me.
b) English people are well known for their love of bowler hats and pinstriped suits.
c) He's English. At least, I think he is. He always wears a bowler hat.

2. 'Spaniard' also has a slightly old-fashioned air. It suggests 16C men in breastplates and morions riding through South America. Best to use 'Spanish' in the same way as 'English', in the examples above.

3. You would say:
a) Both girls are Italian (= adjective).
b) She's Italian.
c) He's an Italian (= noun)

'Both girls are Italians' sounds slightly odd, and most people would revert to option 3a. You could say 'The girls are Italians', though.

MrP

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello Latin

You can get some information in the sites below about what you want to know,
[url="http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/NOUNS6.cfm"]Nationality and Language (1)[/url]
[url="http://www.hello-online.ru/content.php?contid=570"]Nationality and Language (2)[/url]
[url="http://esl.about.com/library/beginner/bl_country.htm"]Nationality and Language (3)[/url]

What I am now confused with is whether I can put "a" to a predicate noun of nationality or not.
I was taught I have to say "I'm Japanese", not "I'm a Japanese".
But they say "He is an Italian" as often as "He is Italian", as Mr P pointed out.
Does the allowance of "a" depend on nationality?
I mean if "Z-an" people are allowed to say like "I'm a Z-an" but not "Z-ese" people like "I'm a Z-ese".

paco

MrPedantic · Answer

'A Japanese' is used in BrE; but for some reason, it has an slight air of 'irregular usage'. It's often used almost in humorous consciousness of this fact.

I don't know why. It's in my dictionary – which also countenances plural 'Japaneses'. (But that sounds odd too.)

We tend to say 'a Japanese person', or 'he's from Japan'.

'A Maltese' and 'a Taiwanese' also sound strange to me. Yet '-ese' is a perfectly acceptable suffix. And it's fine as an adjective.

But 'a Japanese' – 'a Maltese' – 'a Taiwanese': no, I wouldn't use them. Perhaps we're so used to hearing the adjective, we feel a noun should follow.

But other regions (and other BrE speakers) may feel differently.

MrP

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello MrP

Thanks for the reply. I am lucky I get an confirmation directly from a native speaker to that I had better not say "I'm a Japanese", though I feel somewhat like unhappiness in your way of discriminating the suffices "-an" and "-ese". By the way I feel the word "Japaneses" is much better than the word "Japanee", whose uses are still not a few (We can hit more than 5000 sites in Google where "Japanee" is used.

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.

6. The Noun

The only inflections of the noun remaining in English are those for number and for the genitive, and so it is in these two regions that the few variations to be noted in vulgar American occur. The rule that, in forming the plurals of compound nouns or noun-phrases, the -s shall be attached to the principal noun is commonly disregarded, and it goes at the end. Thus, “I have two sons-in-law” is never heard among the plain people; one always hears “I have two son-in-laws.” So with the genitive. I once overheard this: “that umbrella is the young lady I go with’s.” Often a false singular is formed from a singular ending in s, the latter being mistaken for a plural. Chinee, Portugee and Japanee are familiar; I have also noted trapee, specie, 93 tactic and summon (from trapeze, species, tactics and summons). 94 Paradoxically, the word incidence is commonly misused for incident, as in “he told an incidence.” Here incidence (or incident) seems to be regarded as a synonym, not for happening, but for story. I have never heard “he told of an incidence.” The of is always omitted. The general disregard of number often shows itself when the noun is used as object. I have already quoted Lardner’s “some of the men has brung their wife along”; in a popular magazine I lately encountered “those book ethnologists… can’t see what is before their nose.” Many similar examples might be brought forward.

By the way do you feel any differences in the sense among "Blairese", "Blairian" and "Blairish"?

MrPedantic · Answer

That's an interesting quote.

I think I find these differences between the 3:

1. Blairese, n. Usually derogatory. The idiolect of Tony Blair. Characterised by an absence of verbs. Short sentences. Nouns. (NB Must always be accompanied by 'trust me' eyes and curious side-to-side head movements, to give an impression of judicious weighing up of facts that the general public is sadly too dim to appreciate and so can't be trusted with.)

2. Blairian.
a) adj. Characteristic of the content of Blairese.
b) n. A stranger from Planet Blair.

3. Blairish
a) adj. Rather like Tony Blair, either in language or appearance (esp. used of side-to-side head movements, etc).
b) n. Language of Tony Blair's supporters. (Cf 'Brownish'.)

MrP

Paco2004 · Answer

Hello MrP

Thanks as usual for the witty answer. I think our Prime Minister Jun Koizumi is exactly one of the Blairese you defined.

paco

Klavier · Answer

I saw your second link Paco and I got one of my answers.

She's Danish. She's a Dane. The Danes are poor.
She's Finnish. She's a Finn. The Finns are poor.
She's Swedish. She's a Swede. The Swedes are poor.
She's Turkish. She's a Turk. The Turks are poor.
She's Polish. She's a Pole. The Poles are poor.

But also in this site they 'disagree' with what MrP said:
They say: a Frenchman/a Dutchman/an Irishman/a Spaniard/a Welshman/an Englishman.

I wonder if all of these are nowadays old-fashioned.

MrPedantic · Answer

The '-man' forms now have an air of emphasising both nationality and gender. They are more common than the '-woman' forms; but in current (BrE) speech, they seem to occur mostly in humour, oratorical utterances, or slightly old-fashioned generalisations:

1. There's an Englishman, an Irishman, and a Scotsman...
(Traditional beginning to dozens of jokes.)

2. An Englishman's home is his castle.

3. X-men are notoriously short, bad-tempered, and unkind to animals.

(If I give a real example in #3, this thread will be flooded with indignant complaints by the nationals in question....)

MrP

Julielai · Answer

Is there a "Blairism"?  There's now an official "Bushism" calendar. <img class='emoticon' style='Width:19px;Height:19px;' data-delaysrc='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' src='https://uat-englishforward-forums-backend.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Emoticons/1.gif' alt='Emotion: smile'/>

MrPedantic · Answer

Oddly, 'Blairism' is 'the political philosophy of Tony Blair', rather than a characteristic verbal lapse ('Bushism').

There's also 'Blairite': 'a keen supporter of Blair'; though this is used mostly of parliamentarians, or other political figures, rather than members of the public.

MrP

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