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Pedants' corner

Dominican Republic - which is it?

7 replies

winkywinkola · 13/02/2015 11:50

Is it just Dominican Republic?

Or The Dominican Republic with a capital T?

Or the Dominican Republic with a lower case t?

OP posts:
DadDadDad · 13/02/2015 12:24

I googled it, got the official DR Ministry of Tourism (so it claims) and they say "Dominican Republic" with no article in front. So, historically, I'm sure people put a the or The in front, but these days they choose not to.

DadDadDad · 13/02/2015 12:28

Google News shows mixed results, but the Guardian avoids "The", presumably rejecting the colonialist / imperialist usage of the past and recognising the DR's self-determining right to specify it's own name... Smile

Septbaby · 14/02/2015 15:35

This is equally as grating as people who refer to 'the' Ukraine!

SwedishEdith · 14/02/2015 15:38

People used the say The Lebanon and The Argentine as well. And then it just seemed to fall out of use. We still say the UK and the US. Am going to be thinking of more examples now...

prism · 15/02/2015 12:33

In Spanish it's República Dominicana, which kind of sounds like it can manage without the definite article more easily, even though of course Spanish has one. Meanwhile Hindi doesn't, so no-one thinks of saying "The Uttar Pradesh", even though it means exactly the same as "The Northern Territory" in Australia, where allegedly English is spoken. It's a fascinating international quandry...

prism · 15/02/2015 12:42

As well as that I realise that my Irish friends refer to "The Republic" when they are talking about their homeland with a bit more seriousness or reverence, in the same way that French ones, when feeling the hand of the revolution on their shoulders, talk about "La France". And we had a couple of American friends staying here this week who would occasionally lapse into talking about "America", when they weren't bigging the place up. So maybe it's all to do with how serious you want your country to sound.

MirandaGoshawk · 09/03/2015 15:17

It sounds a bit odd to say, for example, "He is from Dominican Republic". I would be inclined to use a lower case 'the'.

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