On Mon, Jul 4, 2022 at 8:09 PM Daniel Dickman <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 4, 2022, at 8:07 PM, Ben Fuller <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 04, 2022 at 19:30:19 -0400, Daniel Dickman wrote:
> >>>> Maldive Islands:Male
> >>> A more common name is just "{The }Maldives".
> >>
> >> I don't think so. See this article:
> >> https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233844
> >>
> >> which states:
> >>
> >> "...according to several authoritative sources, such as the CIA World
> >> Factbook, the Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World and the US Department
> >> of State, only two countries, The Bahamas and The Gambia, should
> >> officially be referred to with the article."
> >
> > That may be so, but for the purposes of a quiz game, if I am asked "of
> > what country is Male the capital", I would answer The Maldives, and
> > would be annoyed if that was marked incorrect because only "Maldive
> > Islands" is accepted. Also, the official name is "Republic of Maldives"
> > or just "Maldives". The point is that this is a game, not a precise
> > database.
>
>
> No you would answer “the Maldives” because it is a group of island. Not “The
> Maldives” (note the capital T) which is not the name of the country.
>
> I’m afraid I still don’t agree with you.
Rereading what you wrote, I agree the NetBSD approach is better than
our current approach of "Maldive Islands". So my local diff now has
the same as NetBSD:
Maldiv{e Island}s:Male
For the prefix "The" -- we also do not have "The United States of
America" or "The Sudan" or "The Philippines" and similar. So I don't
think the optional prefix "The" should be added except for the 2
official cases.
