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aagjevraagje t1_j67n1uz wrote

Tbf I also think it’s annoying to be refered to as "the Dutch" when it's about the government.

Kind of a nonsensical response by the french embassy, embassy isn't referring to "the French" French is a adjective there.

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BondageKitty37 t1_j68hfbk wrote

There are two kinds of people I can't stand: Those who are intolerant of other cultures...and the Dutch

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jubuttib t1_j68jokd wrote

I hate nothing more than racists, and gypsies.

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tophat212 t1_j67qvsk wrote

The author of that tweet came from London.

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HeWhoFistsGoats t1_j67u56z wrote

Of course they do.

For what it's worth, this problem wouldn't happen in French. It's perfectly acceptable to say "les traitres, les fourbes, les perfides, les anglais".

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total_alk t1_j69dynj wrote

I don't understand how English works--and I'm a native speaker. It's perfectly proper English to say "The French", "The English", or "The Dutch" when referring to the people of those countries. But it is not proper English to say "The American", "The German", "The Canadian" when referring to people of those countries. Am I missing something? Is it a simple matter of the words ending in an "h" vs. "n"?

The grammar is confusing.

Edit: to be clear, my comment is about grammar, not whether it is appropriate to use those terms to refer to people groups.

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BuffaloInCahoots t1_j69elnr wrote

Not sure what the rule is but they usually have a word after. The American people/gov or just the Americans. The H thing is interesting though, Americans or Germans is right but Frenchs is mustard and Englishs sound like Golem.

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BaconIsAVeg2 t1_j6bsx8p wrote

> But it is not proper English to say "The American", "The German", "The Canadian" when referring to people of those countries.

You can absolutely say "the Americans and the Canadians fought the Germans during WWII".

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QuantumTea t1_j6a3lqh wrote

I hadn’t thought about it before, but it does have to do with the ending. Nationalities ending in ‘-n’ get an ‘-s’ added to them, and I think all of the others don’t (at least the ones I could think of).

Examples German - the Germans French - the French English - the English Japanese - the Japanese Swiss- the Swiss

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out there are exceptions though (like everything else in English).

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zumera t1_j68rp4h wrote

Ridiculous overreaction. Does the French embassy’s spokesperson understand what AP is talking about? Their embassy is already the Embassy of France. And the alternative to “the French” (noun) would be “French people.”

AP should have just left the tweet alone, frankly.

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felonius_thunk t1_j6bo4jc wrote

It honestly probably brought more attention to what they were trying to point out, as explained in the article. If you could edit tweets, they could have just changed "the poor" or "the disabled" to something like "the college educated" or other positive state rather than something with an inherently negative connotation. I thought the reaction was pretty funny though. "Suffering from Frenchness" is a great phrase.

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FishTacoAtTheTurn t1_j68grxi wrote

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and THE DUTCH. -Nigel Powers

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marlinbird5 t1_j68y48t wrote

TLDR: French people got easily offended again

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wolfTap t1_j6c4xgh wrote

Doesn't seem like that lol think they just pointed our the humor in it

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x-munk t1_j67rzgi wrote

Did the AP learn the lesson? Only the time will tell.

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SolitonSnake t1_j688a3v wrote

Even taking the AP’s claim about how bad it is to say “the X” on face value for the sake of argument - I don’t understand how the tweet was “inappropriate” specifically for saying “the French” when they were using it as an example. What did they themselves find inappropriate about “the French” specifically in that tweet that wasn’t inappropriate about “the poor”?

This is a serious question lol. If it was offensive even for them to say “the French” in an example, then why didn’t they apologize for all the other examples they gave

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Gordon_Explosion t1_j6ahis7 wrote

So they either changed their minds, or AP just got peer pressured to reverse a position.

Heh.

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