On Sun, Oct 1, 2017 at 1:01 PM, Matěj Cepl <mcepl@cepl.eu> wrote:
[...]
> As a rule of thumb, the more qualifiers there are before the name
> of a country, the more corrupt the rulers. A country called The
> Socialist People's Democratic Republic of X is probably the last
> place in the world you'd want to live.
> -- Paul Graham discussing (not only) Nigerian spam
> (http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html)
Makes me wonder. In English or in its native language? Depending on
the language, what used to come before can sometimes go behind and
vice-versa. Now let's try a few examples to see how the proposed rule
of thumb stands against them:
French Republic / République française
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
United States of America
People's Republic of China / simplified hanzi: 中华人民共和国, Mandarin:
Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó, Cantonese: zung^1 waa^4 jan^4 man^4 gung^6
wo^4 gwok^3, where the first syllable is the one which conveys the
idea of "China" or "middle", or the first two syllables "Middle-land".
Russian Federation / Российская Федерация, Rossiyskaya Federatsiya
Republic of India / Bhārat Gaṇarājya (where Bhārat means "India"), I
didn't find how to write it in devanagari.
If it's in the native language, then of all the above the UK has the
most corrupt leaders, and if it's in English it's ex-æquo with China
(3 prefixed words) and more corrupt than at least three of the other
four. Where to put the USA depends on whether you regard "United
States" or "America" as the country's name, but as a caveat, in the
latter case it would seem to mean that that country lays claim to a
"legitimate home territory" extending from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego
(inclusive) with no intervening breaks… Come to think of it, maybe
that's how its present President sees things.
:-P
Tony.
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