Skip to main content

parts of speech - Is "British" a noun or an adjective in "British PM"?


While reading through this question another occurred to me. If a headline reads



British PM says no to inflatable cars.



Is British a noun or an adjective? Granted, there are other noun forms of British but how about French in



French PM says yes!



The example from the original question quoted



Yemen PM Escapes Assassination



Since the adjective for the people of Yemen is Yemeni, this is clearly a noun adjunct. However, in those cases where the noun and the adjective forms are the same (British, French, Greek, Italian etc.) as in the example above, are these adjectives or nouns? They can be taken as either.



Answer



This is just headliner confusion. British is virtually always an adjective, not a noun. The noun is Britain. But headlines of late have been using the shorter noun forms, as in Spain court in lieu of Spanish court. I wouldn’t recommend it outside of headlines, if even there.


Be that as it may, we aren’t going to start calling British, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese “nouns” just because their corresponding noun forms are now getting used as noun-adjuncts in headline English.


One example of British as a noun might be:



We haven’t seen many British around here lately.



Although another is:



We haven’t seen many Britishers around here lately.



Neither of those is particularly well thought of. In writing, Briton is usually preferred:



We haven’t seen many Britons around here lately.



But that can of course be misheard in speech as:



We haven’t seen many *Britains around here lately.



Which is one reason why it tends to be shorted to the casual:



We haven’t seen many Brits around here lately.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more