When does a country become "The"?
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Funk
pfm Member
If Trump wins in November we will need to use "The Democratic Republic of the United States of America" by the time he's finished with it!
Mike Reed
pfm Member
Nederland in Dutch. I don't know Dutch but this doesn't look like a plural, so why not 'the Netherland' (sing.)?
Nederlands (pronounced neigh-de-lands, the d of lands being half way between a d and t in pronounciation) means literally low countries in Dutch (note the s). I would probably bet that Neder and nether (English, meaning low - nether regions....) are really the same word, changed over time.
Nederlandse means Dutch.
Dutch is from the same root as Deutsch, and means the folk, although Dutch for folk is volk.
Nord and Suid Holland are two lande - districts that are part of The Netherlands. A few, especially older, Dutch people get wound up when their country is called Holland, but the great majority ignore it from foreign ignoramuses.
Nederlandse means Dutch.
Dutch is from the same root as Deutsch, and means the folk, although Dutch for folk is volk.
Nord and Suid Holland are two lande - districts that are part of The Netherlands. A few, especially older, Dutch people get wound up when their country is called Holland, but the great majority ignore it from foreign ignoramuses.
Hazelberry
sister
It must be like foreigners using 'England' to mean the 'United Kingdom' or 'Britain' or whatever, to the ire of Scots, Welsh, & NI citizens.
tuga
Legal Alien
Or how kingdoms that aren't really kingdoms (e.g. UK).
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The UK has a king as head of state and the people living within it are probably at least as united as the people of any country. The peoples of the four seperate countries have also voted individually to remain united, albeit NI must be close to being likely to vote "leave" if they now had a vote.
The UK is/has a constitutional monarchy. Maybe you are getting confused with absolute monarchy?
The choice of the official name was made by parliament after Eire seceded.
Colin L
High-tech low-life
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, though the UK is much easier admittedly
Not yet in the North Pole. Maybe in time with climate change.
awkwardbydesign
Officially Awesome
Me.
tuga
Legal Alien
An Absolutely Powerless king, yes.
Sue Pertwee-Tyr
Accuphase all the way down
Contrast with The Equator, which is mostly owned by a pollygarchy of parrots.
Alex N
pfm Member
Penguins and polar bears are polar opposites: the Antarctic, the Arctic.
Arctic comes from the Greek words arktikos (near the Bear, northern) and arktos (bear), referring to the constellations Ursa Major and (including Polaris, the Pole Star) Ursa Minor. Great and little bear…
Antarctic means the opposite of Arctic. No bears…
Do you even Attenborough? : )
And your point is? (Not that he has literally no power at all, although as king, Charles is probably meddling far less than as PoW.)
Being a non-native English-speaker, you are probably getting very confused, it certainly seems so from your posts.
Look up "constitutional" and "absolute" in terms of monarchy.
The UK is a kingdom and as likely as you'd ever be likely to get, united.
Are you arguing for an absolute monarchy? If so, I would suggest a move to the Russian Federation as that has got to be as close to it in a large country as anywhere in the world currently.
Even if the UK were not a kingdom, the name was just a choice of name. So far as I am aware, the British Empire never claimed to have an Emperor of the whole empire (Victoria was only ever called Empress of India?????), but it was called an empire. As above in several examples, a country's choice of name is reasonably arbtitrary - an excellent example is Rhodesia, which chose Zimbabwe, linked to one of the country's ancient and powerful tribes, which never ruled what the country is today.
Portugal is derived from the name of a settlement on the Duoro - a bit like calling the UK as a whole, Greater London, or Londonland, or Londiniumland, which, despite what many Americans in particular believe, is a (very) long way from being accurate.
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