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"Ukraine" means outskirts, so one way to read it is that "Outskirts" is clearly the proper noun of a country, where-as "The outskirts" is a territory. "The US"
by LanternLight83 5y ago
"Ukraine" means outskirts, so one way to read it is that "Outskirts" is clearly the proper noun of a country, where-as "The outskirts" is a territory.
"The US", however, means "The United States", which makes it really clear that you're talking about the States as a nation (or at least as organized states) and gives it a lot of resistance to this nuance. The cleanest equivalent would "America" vs "the Americas", but because that's clearly too broad. Where a single article is all it takes to change the implication in the case of Ukraine, here we'd need more explicitly refer to the land, like "the continental US territory".
It's also worth noting that no one would be scrutinizing statements about the US in the same way because it doesn't have a context that puts it in dispute. At least in casual contexts, inaccuracies are often overlooked when what you meant to say is clear and uncontroversial.
- croes 5y agoThe name "Outskirts" implies the question "Outskirts of what?" Maybe a name change would be appropriate.
- colechristensen 5y agoFar be it from any of us to tell a country what it should name itself.
- georgecmu 5y agoOutskirts of Poland and Russia. Regarding name change: be careful what you wish for; it may indeed be coming.
- rzz3 5y agoWhen it has a capital letter at the beginning, it’s perfectly clear that we’re referring to a country, rather than “the outskirts”. When our text is in English, it’s clear that “Ukraine” refers to a country, not “outskirts”. This is downright ridiculous and it’s annoying that some people are so deficient in application of contextual understanding that they criticize others in this way. Be nice to people and stop playing word police. This isn’t Reddit.
- drran 5y agoUkraine means «fortified area»: укріплення (fortifications) + край (area) = україна (ookruhїnuh, Ukraine). It's a number of fortification lines built to protect Europe from eastern nomads. Russian are replacing Oo by Oh at the beginning to make «Outskirt» (of Moscow) in Russian language. Don't spread falsified version, please. One of the French engineers, who built fortification lines, Guillaume de Beauplan[0], created the first map (1639) and wrote a book about Ukraine. It was correct to refer to these fortifications as «The Ukraine» before Ukraine received independence from the Russian Empire, but no longer. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Le_Vasseur_de_Beauplan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Le_Vasseur_de_Beaupl...