For years my ears and brain have ached when I heard someone refer to the Dominican Republic as "The Dominican."
It has always sounded entirely awkward to me, just as if referring to The Check (Czech) Republic as "The Check." As in: "I just returned from a nice visit to the Check."
While I am comfortably literate in the English language, I must not have been paying much attention in school when certain elements of sentence structure and correct grammatical usage were taught, as I can't properly define *why* "The Dominican" is improper usage in the context of referring to the DR as the country.
I hear this not just from regular folks returning from their first visit to a Dominican AI, but also from highly educated people who should know better. Hell, even my mother who has several degrees and is a university associate professor and has been going to the DR for over twenty years uses that term, "The Dominican!"
After all, if it's just a case of laziness, using "The D. R." (Like "The U. S." in lieu of "The United States.") is an easier three syllables and far more correct from my view than the apparently laborious eight syllables of "The Dominican Republic."
What I would like is someone to offer me a grammatical definition as to the parts of speech in their correct usage in an example of why "The Dominican" is incorrect when referring to the place, The Dominican Republic.
I always quickly and politely slip in a correction when I hear the misuse, but I need more ammunition in terms of correct English usage to drive my point home.
Any grammatical wizards out there?
It has always sounded entirely awkward to me, just as if referring to The Check (Czech) Republic as "The Check." As in: "I just returned from a nice visit to the Check."
While I am comfortably literate in the English language, I must not have been paying much attention in school when certain elements of sentence structure and correct grammatical usage were taught, as I can't properly define *why* "The Dominican" is improper usage in the context of referring to the DR as the country.
I hear this not just from regular folks returning from their first visit to a Dominican AI, but also from highly educated people who should know better. Hell, even my mother who has several degrees and is a university associate professor and has been going to the DR for over twenty years uses that term, "The Dominican!"
After all, if it's just a case of laziness, using "The D. R." (Like "The U. S." in lieu of "The United States.") is an easier three syllables and far more correct from my view than the apparently laborious eight syllables of "The Dominican Republic."
What I would like is someone to offer me a grammatical definition as to the parts of speech in their correct usage in an example of why "The Dominican" is incorrect when referring to the place, The Dominican Republic.
I always quickly and politely slip in a correction when I hear the misuse, but I need more ammunition in terms of correct English usage to drive my point home.
Any grammatical wizards out there?