"Les Etats-Unis"

A recurring topic here in the States concerns the shift from thinking of the United States primarily as a collection of states, to treating it as a single entity. This change came about sometime after the Civil War, as reflected in the usage “The United States is … “ replacing “The United States are … “ in books and conversation. My question is, How is this distinction made in French? “Les Etats-Unis”, a collective noun, must be followed by “sont” rather than “est”, n’est-ce pas?

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Permalink Reply by Charles D on October 2, 2014 at 10:45pm

The distinction is not made in French. A plural noun gets a plural article. What we in the US call collective nouns that take singular conjugations ("The team is on a winning streak) is American English. In English English, Manchester United are on a winning streak. I suggest that if you want to stress the union of states expressed in "the United States is..." perhaps best served by l'Amerique.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on October 3, 2014 at 12:31am

I think "l'Amerique" is used to mean "the Americas ,North and South" (the 2 continents in other words) .

I am not quite sure what Robert is asking. Does he want a form in French of describing the USA that would be followed by a verb in the 3rd person singular (rather than the plural) or does he want to describe ,in French how the use of language in America is changing in this regard?

If it is the latter then I would probably use verbatim examples in English itself and only use French as a way to explain the examples .

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Permalink Reply by Robert Marcus on October 3, 2014 at 1:17am

I suppose my question is as much cultural/philosophical as grammatical. The transition from "are" to "is" when referring to the United States is important when studying U.S. history. I just started reading de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (in English!) He understood the American system as well as anyone before or since, even writing in 1840. Did he refer to the United States in the singular? Perhaps someone who has read the book in the original French knows the answer to this. Sorry if I’m digressing too much from the subject of this forum!

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EducatorPermalink Reply by George Hunt on October 3, 2014 at 2:05am

I sometimes try and hunt down books andd/or texts online.

If you follow this link you may be able to find exerts from de Tocqueville's writing around that time (if there is no one else here who can give you better advice)

https://www.google.ie/search?q=Tocqueville&btnG=Search+Books&am...

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on October 3, 2014 at 2:20am

Hi George -- I think in French, as in English, there's a tendency for "l'Amérique" to mean "l'Amérique du Nord". You can also pluralise in French: "les Amériques" to mean "the Americas".

I also suspect, as in English, that to a French person, "les États-Unis" is essentially conceptualised as "a single country" rather than as "a plurality of separate states". In other words, "l'Amérique" and "les États-Unis" are essentially synonyms to all intents and purposes. Trying to read too much into the choice of the singular vs plural as a statement of singular vs plurality of political entities is overphilosophising in my humble opinion.