Re: Schroeder vs Merkel: A tale of two Germanys

On Sat, 17 Sep 2005 13:41:34 GMT, Joe Fineman <joe_f@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>"Dylan Sung" <dylanwhs.tsktsktsk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
>> "António Marques" <m.ap@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:432b9534$0$5355$a729d347@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>I don't know, but neither germanys, germanies nor germany's look
>>>very good to me. What would be the sensible option?
>>
>> I'll go with "A tale of two Germanys", with the capital G ;-)
>
>So, it seems, does the Chicago Manual, 14th ed. (at any rate, it says
>"three Marys"). But AHD has "Germanies". At Google, "Germanys" is
>ahead 212k-71k.
>
>In general, with proper nouns, preserving the y is a sound rule;
>"Maries" would be misleading, "Harries" would be bizarre, and
>"Garrities" would leave the reader in doubt about the correct spelling
>of the singular. IMO it is reasonable, for the sake of uniformity, to
>go along with the rule even in cases like "Germany" where everybody
>knows what the singular is.

So then, how do you spell the singular form of "Denises", or of
"Louises"? ;-) Plurals of first names, those are: even the gender of
those names will probably vary depending on which spelling you use for
the base form.

I tend to think about this problem a lot when questions about forming
the plurals of proper nouns come up.

- Daniel al-Autistiqui
--
Daniel Gerard McGrath: a/k/a "Govende"
I have the developmental disability Autism.

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