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I know this is off-topic, but ascribing a country as the "doer" for this sort of story frustrates me a lot. I'm sure people would be up in arms if "America bui

by rtpg 12y ago

I know this is off-topic, but ascribing a country as the "doer" for this sort of story frustrates me a lot. I'm sure people would be up in arms if "America builds Creationist museum" was a headline, so why should we do this for other places? It's not even hard to rewrite! "First hotel entirely operated by robots to open in Japan"

jacquesm 12y ago
> I'm sure people would be up in arms if "America builds Creationist museum" was a headline Why would they be up in arms, it's a solid fact: http://www.creationevidence.org/ http://www.creationevidence.org/
- rtpg 12y ago
  because it's not America as whole who got together to do it, it's a couple people who live in the country who do it. At least that's how I see it. "America rejects Bush, elects Clinton" makes sense because it's talking about something the country as a whole did. But saying "America builds the creationist museum" can be read as "this was built with a non-minimal amount of popular support, is representative of how americans see things as a whole, and should be placed on the index card describing the country and its people"
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    Every news-item in every newspaper published starts off with 'City,' for national news and 'City, Country' for international news. That's so customary I highly doubt readers would interpret it as the whole country being complicit, it's just a geographic label, not a stand-in for the population.
    - logfromblammo 12y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy This sort of construct is well-established in English. When the headline reads "America Walks on Moon", the metonymic expansion is understood to be "[at least one person from] America Walks on Moon". In this case, I need no additional context to interpret the headline as the hotel being built somewhere within the geographical region called Japan.

by rtpg 12y ago

jacquesm 12y ago

> I'm sure people would be up in arms if "America builds Creationist museum" was a headline Why would they be up in arms, it's a solid fact: http://www.creationevidence.org/ http://www.creationevidence.org/

rtpg 12y ago
because it's not America as whole who got together to do it, it's a couple people who live in the country who do it. At least that's how I see it. "America rejects Bush, elects Clinton" makes sense because it's talking about something the country as a whole did. But saying "America builds the creationist museum" can be read as "this was built with a non-minimal amount of popular support, is representative of how americans see things as a whole, and should be placed on the index card describing the country and its people"
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Every news-item in every newspaper published starts off with 'City,' for national news and 'City, Country' for international news. That's so customary I highly doubt readers would interpret it as the whole country being complicit, it's just a geographic label, not a stand-in for the population.
  - logfromblammo 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonymy This sort of construct is well-established in English. When the headline reads "America Walks on Moon", the metonymic expansion is understood to be "[at least one person from] America Walks on Moon". In this case, I need no additional context to interpret the headline as the hotel being built somewhere within the geographical region called Japan.