Terms for armies

[FierceKitty]

Do Lowlanders really deserve a name?

[mmcv]

There's also an Ulster-Scots dialect, or "Ullans", spoken in the north of Ireland.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Do Lowlanders really deserve a name?

Well they are the majority.

[FierceKitty]

There are more beetles than any other multi-cellular animal on this planet, I believe.

[howayman]

Do they speak with a liverpudlian accent?

[steve_holmes_11]

Interestingly you would say the German did this or the Italian did that when talking of an individual. But you wouldn't say the English or French did that, you'd say Englishman or Frenchwoman. It's interesting that for some the singular is also the possessive and others the plural is the possessive.

Could be something to do with the sounds at the end of the word. -ish and -ench are softer than the hard -an. So the softer ending English, Danish, Spanish, French, Dutch, etc vs the harder* German, Russian, Italian, Belgian, American (and many many more)

Other soft endings tend to follow the same pattern, e.g. -ese as in Chinese, Japanese, Sudanese, Portuguese.

...10 minutes down the etymological rabbit hole later...

Seems the harder -an style endings tend to come from the Latin names into English while the softer endings tend to come from German (ish) or Italian (ese). Presumably in other languages they use different patterns for singular vs plural possession depending where they get the national names from.

In answer to d_guy my understanding is Scottish is generally the correct term for the people. Scots I've only really seen used in relation to the language/dialect and in some archaic uses. Scotch meanwhile tends to relate to inanimate objects related to Scotland. So the Scottish people speak the Scots dialect while drinking Scotch whisky.


*No dirty jokes, I know what you lot are like...

Just guessing here.
Germans, Italians (add in Indians and another example) are distinct plurals, ass opposed to English, Scots, Dutch, Chinese.

Could the plurals be because the geographic description existed before the areas became unitiary states?

Just guessing here, and I'll freely admit it's more likely to be an inconsistency inherent in any Frankenlanguage that's a mash-up of Old German, Norman French, with a high proportion of international loan words form our colonial past.

[steve_holmes_11]

Do they speak with a liverpudlian accent?

Dey do doh, don't deh.

[d_Guy]

There are more beetles than any other multi-cellular animal on this planet, I believe.

With new models coming out each year, seemingly.

[FierceKitty]

Do they speak with a liverpudlian accent?

The mind boggles.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Do they speak with a liverpudlian accent?

Nah - it be mostly Italian in Glasgee !

[FierceKitty]

Just guessing here.
Germans, Italians (add in Indians and another example) are distinct plurals, ass opposed to English, Scots, Dutch, Chinese.

Could the plurals be because the geographic description existed before the areas became unitiary states?

Just guessing here, and I'll freely admit it's more likely to be an inconsistency inherent in any Frankenlanguage that's a mash-up of Old German, Norman French, with a high proportion of international loan words form our colonial past.

It's an idea. We need to find someone who can read and write, don't we?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

It's an idea. We need to find someone who can read and write, don't we?

'ad many books published ?

[Raider4]

'ad many books published ?

Proves nothing. Dan Brown has had many books published, and he certainly can't write.

[Techno]

That's the very weird thing about Dan Brown.

I tried...... Oh how I tried to read one of his books a few years ago......and just gave up......I couldn't cope with it.
I think I read about twenty pages before giving up....It was TRIPE !

I listened to the same (audio) book some months later, having borrowed said book from the library van.
This time.....I thoroughly enjoyed it ! (And it was the unabridged version.)

That still doesn't make sense to me.

Cheers - Phil

[FierceKitty]

Was it being read by Glenda Jackson or Ian McKellan or Jeremy Irons? Some voices could read a telephone directory and sound interesting.