Tuesday, 18 September 2012

Holland, Netherlands or Dutch?




Much academic writing demands accurate use of nationality words. These are the nouns and adjectives used for countries, languages and people. In English, these are often regular:

       Germany is a leading industrial nation. (country)
       The German capital is Berlin (adjective)
       German is spoken by over 100 million people in Europe (language)
       Germans are fond of drinking beer (people)

But certain nationalities are irregular and need to be learnt:

       Holland/ The Netherlands is a crowded nation (country)
       The Dutch have a strong tradition of sea-going (people & language)

Also note (country/ people/ language):

       Denmark/ Danes/ Danish
       Thailand/ Thais/ Thai
       Poland/ Poles/ Polish
       China/ The Chinese/ Chinese

A few countries take the definite article:

      The Czech Republic
      The United Kingdom
       The United Arab Emirates

Note that England is not a country. Although we can say English people or The Bank of England the nationality word is British. The name of the country is Britain or The United Kingdom.

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