Teacher Discussion Forums

Seeing "Spain's King" on Breitbart today made me realise that I've seen this before. It's like "France's President" etc and I wonder if it's slightly more AmE than BrE.

It seems to jar ever so slightly as I would prefer "Spanish" or "French", I think.

FWIW an unscientific Google reveals that Mexico's President : Mexican President is a ratio of over 1:10 (87,000:765,000) while Ireland's President : Irish President is about 1:130 (635:82,600) which, always assuming that references to Mexico are more likely to be AmE and those to Ireland BrE, suggests a certain difference.

Nobody need send me loads of Americans using the nationality adjectives or Brits using the 's because I am aware that both happen. However, I wonder if there isn't an AmE tendency to use the 's more readily in these contexts?

How does There is no future in England's dreaming sound to you?

It seems that the more "animate" something is, the more likely you are to see a genitive, so maybe it depends on how much a country is perceived as having a "personality". I've no idea if it's more prevalent in AmE though.

Good thinking. Countries as people.


Which would you expect to Google more: "Mayor of London" or "Mayor of New York"?

Doesn't Google usually ignore words like of?

Although the "animate" analysis doesn't really account for the use of the genitive with some time expressions:
last night's gale
Wednesday's match
last summer's floods

Google searches for the exact phrase if you use "........." as far as I know.

http://www.usingenglish.com/profiles/td ... 00302.html