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Duncan @balrogboogie@mastodon.art
1y
genuinely curious about the linguistic reasons that english let's you describe some people as "a <nationality>" for some countries while for other countries you have to say "a <nationality> person"

like you can say "an American", "a German", "a Korean", "a Greek" but it doesn't sound right to say "a French", "a Japanese", "a Danish" etc
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Tournesol 🌻 @tournesol@peculiar.florist
1y
@balrogboogie not a native and I might be biaises by french but all those options seems a bit … mean ? Like erasing a person personality by just their nationality. I prefer to use "a <nationality> person"
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Duncan @balrogboogie@mastodon.art
1y
@tournesol maybe, but I think in practice it's usually just another way of describing someone. E.g., "he's a Capricorn", "she's a doctor", etc. None of those inherently reduce someone down to a single thing, and "they're a Canadian" or w/e falls under that same usage umbrella, at least in my experience
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