Re: Unnecessary Words?

HVS wrote:
On 24 Sep 2008, Arfur Million wrote

The Basingstoke HVS <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
On 24 Sep 2008, Arfur Million wrote

"HVS" <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Xns9B2366808FD59whhvans@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On 24 Sep 2008, Arfur Million wrote

"Bob Cunningham" <exw6sxq@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:58jjd4plt1flb3rjq2k6rlpsbp9gqj9f5c@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 09:56:19 +0800, Robert Bannister
<robban1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hatunen wrote:
[...]

But I reckon the English think their Times is the only
important Times in the world.
The only point is that its name is "The Times", not the
"London Times",
That's certainly not the only point with regard to the name
"The Times". A more important point is that it would be
naive to write "The Times" in an international forum and
expect people to understand that a paper published in
England is meant.
There are better ways of solving that problem than giving it
another name, especially one that is misleading.
And your suggestion would be...what, precisely?

I can see why people wouldn't be too keen to write something
long-winded like "The Times, the UK publication,...", but "The
Times, of the UK, ..." doesn't seem too bad or even "The Times
(UK)". Usually, the qualification would only need to be used
once, unless other Timeses were included in the discussion. I
suppose there is the question about which of "UK" or "British"
should be used . . .
All of which look like quite long-winded contortions to avoid
the perfectly understandable -- and in an international
setting, unambiguous -- "London Times".
Unambiguous? Does it not imply a paper of that name?

No; not to me -- it just implies "a newspaper called 'The Times' that is based in London, and may or may not include the name of city or country".

I'd include pretty well all papers which share names in the same group: I'm not sure which of the various Heralds have geographical names attached, but it certainly wouldn't bother me if someone referred to the Glasgow one as "The Scottish Herald" in a context where it might be confused with the ones from Zimbabwe or New Zealand.

It seems to me that there is a difference between referring to something in speech by an informal name that is almost certain to understood by the audience and a reference in writing where there is a greater need for accuracy.


--
Rob Bannister
.

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