25 April 2012

Usage Wednesday: Denizen Labels!


Yesterday I got an awesome email: "Garner's Usage Tip - Denizen Labels (1)." !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Denizen labels are the different suffixes you add to a city-name to create a label for a citizen, like "Atlantan" or "New Yorker." Judging by the "(1)" in the subject line, my inbox has wayyy more useful suffix info in store. Cowabunga!!!!! 

Below are George R. Stewart's general suggestions for how to go about labeling people (*spacing mine):
Loose guidelines do exist for naming denizens. George R. Stewart, a historian, developed seven guidelines that H.L. Mencken called "Stewart's Laws of Municipal Onomastics." They were cited in the best up-to-date work on this subject, Paul Dickson's Labels for Locals (1997):
(1) if the place name ends in "-a" or "-ia," add "-n" (Alaska, Alaskan) (California, Californian);
(2) if the name ends in "-i" or a sounded "-e," add "-an" (Hawaii, Hawaiian) (Albuquerque, Albuquerquean);
(3) if the name ends in "-on," add "-ian" (Oregon, Oregonian);
(4) if the name ends in "-y," change the "-y" to an "-i" and add "-an" (Albany, Albanian);
(5) if the name ends in "-o," add "-an" (Chicago, Chicagoan);
(6) if the name ends in a consonant or a silent "-e," add either "-ite" or "-er," depending on euphony (Maine, Mainer) (New Hampshire, New Hampshireite);
(7) if the name ends in "-polis," change that to "-politan" (Minneapolis, Minneapolitan).
 If you're from Narnia, you're Narnian! If you're from Winterfell, you're Winterfeller! If you're me, you're Nerdly Mannbottoms.

In the end I guess I just never realized that someone had figured out all of this for us. Denizen labels!

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