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Seagull Posted 9 years ago
Grammar

what A is called/ named

Regarding the following three sentences:

(A) I don't know the name of this flower.

(B) I don't know what this flower is called.

(C) I don't know what this flower is named.

Can we say that the above three sentences mean pretty much the same? I'm particularly interested in whether we can use (C) to replace (B)?
  

Top answer

(A) and (B) are natural, (C) is not really. They mean the same thing (near enough) but I would be very surprised to hear any native speaker use (C). People call a flower something rather than name a flower something.

— David Hatton

  • (A) and (B) are natural, (C) is not really.
  • They mean the same thing (near enough) but I would be very surprised to hear any native speaker use (C).
  • People call a flower something rather than name a flower something.
  • The only person who named the flower is the first person to have classified it and created that name.
  • The only difference between (A) and (B) that I'd pick out is that a name of a flower tends to be the proper word(s) used to classify it.
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5 Answers
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(A) and (B) are natural, (C) is not really. They mean the same thing (near enough) but I would be very surprised to hear any native speaker use (C). People call a flower something rather than name a flower something. The only person who named the flower is the first person to have classified it and created that name.

The only difference between (A) and (B) that I'd
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I understand.
Thank you very much, David, for your clear and informative explanation.
I've leaned a lot.
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C might be used in American English because speakers of that usually say named instead of called.
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I normally try to clarify by pointing out that my answers are from a British English speaker's perspective so yes, this may vary according to the way the language is used by our American cousins!
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AnonymousC might be used in American English because speakers of that usually say named instead of called.
I don't know where you got that from. Google Ngrams is unable to find any examples of "what is it named" either in American English or in British English.

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