I have a question which I hope you can answer; I am an English-language instructor and some of my students have posed the following, which I cannot answer:
(1) Why would someone from Seoul be called a "Seoulite" and someone from London be called a "Londoner"? (ditto for "Filipino" instead of "Philippinian", "Spaniard" instead of "Spainer" or "Spainian" etc). How and from what "rules" are these pronouns standardized?
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!
why the variance in spelling trends for words ending in &quo
Moderator: Joe
no exact science?
mmm:
some nationalities have a certain shape but they are exceptional:
-ish (mostly European): Irish, British, English, Scottish, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Turkish...
-ese (mostly Asian): Japanese, Burmese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Portugese
-i (mostly Middle Eastern and Asian): Bahrani, Iraqi, Israeli, Thai, Kuwaiti, Pakistani, Saudi
- an/ian: American, Italian, Indonesian, Australian, Canadian, Russian
-ch: French, Czech, Dutch, Korean
some others: Icelandic, Greek, Filipino, Swiss, Malagasy
hope it's of help!
some nationalities have a certain shape but they are exceptional:
-ish (mostly European): Irish, British, English, Scottish, Finnish, Polish, Spanish, Turkish...
-ese (mostly Asian): Japanese, Burmese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Portugese
-i (mostly Middle Eastern and Asian): Bahrani, Iraqi, Israeli, Thai, Kuwaiti, Pakistani, Saudi
- an/ian: American, Italian, Indonesian, Australian, Canadian, Russian
-ch: French, Czech, Dutch, Korean
some others: Icelandic, Greek, Filipino, Swiss, Malagasy
hope it's of help!
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- Joined: 31 Aug 2005, 06:49