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owlfish at 11:55pm on 01/06/2007
owlfish at 11:55pm on 01/06/2007Most countries have adjectives which refer to things which belong to or are from that country.
Put the word "the" in front of the adjective and you have an adjective representing a noun phrase. "The English" is short for "The English people". And yet - any of these adjectives ending in a -sh/-ch sound is plural, and any of them ending in -ian is singular.
Why? Where does this pattern come from?And is this related to the plural of "fish"?
P.S. And since when has a macro been defined as a "picture with a caption"? I've seen this several times in the past 24 hours.
America - American
England - English
France - French
Canada - Canadian
Japan - Japanese
Italy - Italian
Put the word "the" in front of the adjective and you have an adjective representing a noun phrase. "The English" is short for "The English people". And yet - any of these adjectives ending in a -sh/-ch sound is plural, and any of them ending in -ian is singular.
Singular: the American, the Canadian, the Italian
Plural: the English, the French, the Japanese
Why? Where does this pattern come from?
P.S. And since when has a macro been defined as a "picture with a caption"? I've seen this several times in the past 24 hours.
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