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A quick glance at Wikipedia shows that
1. The entry is under "Netherlands"
2. In the entry, "the" is not capitalized unless it's at the beginning
of sentence
3. The discussion page for the entry dissects these issues in great
detail. Since membership in Wikipedia is free, anyone who wants to learn
more might want to look at the discussion page for more background.
The *real* import of this thread is that legal names, accepted names,
and commonly used names can all be different even among those who
consider themselves "experts". Your choice of "standard" should be
guided by many considerations, including the needs of your audience.
Some country names are relatively easily to deal with. Although its
official name is "The United States of Mexico", I suspect that most
Mexicans would simply say "Mexico." The Netherlands is a bit more
difficult, since (at least in English) the country is "The Netherlands"
but the people are "Dutch". Even worse, in the USA (United States of
America), the "Pennsylvania Dutch" are not of Dutch descent but German!
The worst (as we USAers discovered) is China; the mainland country is
the (or "The"?) People's Republic of China, while the island of Taiwan
is residence of The (or "the"?) Republic of China. Similarly, the former
West Germany was (in German) Bundesrepublik Deutschland while East
Germany was the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
Personally, I live in the state of Confusion .
Joe Malin
Technical Writer
(408)625-1623
jmalin -at- tuvox -dot- com
www.tuvox.com
The views expressed in this document are those of the sender, and do not
necessarily reflect those of TuVox, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
[mailto:techwr-l-bounces+jmalin=tuvox -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com] On Behalf
Of Johan Hiemstra
Sent: Tuesday, July 11, 2006 1:36 PM
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Subject: RE: the Netherlands vs. The Netherlands
> The reason that the list doesn't help you is that the official
> English (short) name of the country is neither "The Netherlands"
> nor "the Netherlands", but simply "Netherlands". The US Board
> on Geographic Names and ISO agree on this.
>
> I suppose you could ask the Dutch Embassy(202 244-5300), too,
> although I wouldn't necessarily consider them an authoritative
> source.
That partly explains the "the" vs "The". What also does, we call it
Nederland ourselves. So "land" as in singular, hence without "The".
The official name, "Kingdom of the Netherlands" is in Dutch "Koninkrijk
der Nederlanden), also literally translated, as 'Netherlands' and
'Nederlanden'
are both plural. This is because of the colonies, and originally also
Belgium. Just to be complete, Holland (not 'a' province in The
Netherlands, we have Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland, I assume those
don't need
translation) basically means 'hollow land', again as in low, and
'neder'.
(down to below sea level). The French refer to us as Pays-Bas, which
doesn't mean "pay little" referring to the stereotype of not spending a
lot of money, but also means low lands. In turn, 'The Low Lands', and
without caps, refers more to the physical lower areas including parts of
Belgium as well.
Hence, there is no 'Netherlands' without 'The', because it's part of the
name. That would be like "The Three Musketeers" without the "The". So
the more correct English version of 'Nederland' would be 'Netherland',
but I don't think I will be able to convince either my teachers or ISO.
I have to add though that I left school 13 years ago. But it was one of
those typical things you could get on an English exam. "Hi, where are
you from?" "I'm from...". I.o.w. it's one of the first things you learn
and they keep repeating it until, well, decades later I will still be
afraid of the read stripe through 'the'. ;)
I've always found foreign names for countries and cities very
interesting.
Not just Dutch places in foreign languages, but just the fact that even
when a name can easily be pronounced, it is still changed into something
else. An easy examples is "Roma", which is "Rome" in English, and in
Dutch (though we pronounce it as Ro-muh, two syllables). I always
imagine the old discoverers to come back after months at sea and not
being able to pronounce the names of the places they visit.
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