Forum: Author Hangout

I hesitated about the hyphen and decided it's not needed

I expected that. :-)

As to "Spanish-speaking," I hesitated about the hyphen and decided it's not needed because it's not confusing without it (like Grammar Girl's "noise canceling").

I still fail to see what advantage there is to leaving that hyphen out.

One minor nit with your example paragraph. I'd drop your duplicate "stations", as it's unnecessary since it's already been established in the previous sentence.

If we're going to play that game, I think mentioning 'English' is redundant after 'Spanish' has already been named. My minimalist version would be:

The closer he got to Cactus Pointe, the fewer radio stations there were. Most were now in Spanish, the remainder either Christian or country and western.

Sorry, SB. The temptation is hard to resist. :-)

So no one thinks country and western should be capitalized.

Since rock music is not capitalized, then neither should country and western. However, Bluegrass should always be capitalized. Well, at least in my opinion. :)

I believe they're genres.

There is a difference between when an entire noun phrase should be in title case because it is a proper noun and when an adjective should be in title case.

I do not dare attempt to describe the situations for noun phrases, but it's relatively simple for adjectives. To be in title case, those must literally refer to someone or something specifically identified by a name. A suffix of -ian or -an is usually added when referring to people.

I would use a capital for something like 'Elizabethan music', but most styles and genres, etc. do not literally refer to anything specific enough for a capital to be used.

Periods are capitalized, like the Classical period. But the genre — classical music — is not. Elizabethan music is a period.

That is an example of the principle I was trying to describe.

For an adjective to have a capital it must refer to something specific enough to have a capital when used as a noun. The Classical and Elizabethan periods are usually written with capitals. The sixties is a period which is not and you would not use a capital for 'sixties music'.

The test is not whether it is a period, it's whether what is being referred to would be written with a capital letter.

Actually, Sixties is capitalized. From: https://journalistsresource.org/tip-sheets/style/chicago-style-basics

WRONG!

Quoting from CMoS itself (with my emphasis):

9.4 Decades.
Decades are either spelled out [as long as the century is clear] and lowercased or expressed in numerals.

Ngrams shows capitalising is rare for either 'the Sixties' or 'Sixties music'.

Personally, I cannot see a logical explanation why 'sixties' should not be capitalised. There appears to be a minority who do capitalise it.

* * *

But, I think you're unable to see the forest for one tree here.

The reason periods are capitalised when defining a style of music IS NOT that they are periods. It's that the periods are proper nouns. That applies to other things too, such as 'Christian rock' and 'American music'.

I suggest you reread my comments above substituting 'everything but damn music' whenever I have written 'music'. They will still be valid.

"If you remember the Sixties, you weren't there" ... is different than, "I was born in the sixties."

I agree they are different. I'd say the use of 'Sixties' was non-standard - but an artistic choice that conveys the intended meaning better.

The reason I read for capitalizing the Sixties is: "If the decade is to be considered a well-defined phenomenon."

I can see the point being made but I don't think the explanation is adequate.

Perhaps it should be "If the name is sufficient to identify a well-defined phenomenon", with the fact the name is a decade being irrelevant.

To me, 'the Fifties' and 'the Sixties' probably qualify, but no other decades. When I see 'the Fifties', I think of a period of consumerism and conformity; and 'the Sixties', I think of a period of liberalisation and protest. The key to whether the use of a proper noun is acceptable is will others make the same non-literal interpretation from just the name used. The context would need to make clear you were describing social phenomenon at those times for that to work.

In contrast, 'the fifties' and 'the sixties' have quite different and literal meanings.

To paraphrase Strunk, "A writer should obey the rules unless they know doing otherwise is better."

I agree that 'the Fifties' and 'the Sixties' are wrong. But I can see situations where using them is better.

I wouldn't recommend anyone does it. If I saw it, I'd probably assume it was a mistake - unless the author had already established my trust that they know how to obey the "rules" when they choose to.

You, as an editor are not telling them something is OK or not

I hope as an editor I would always flag 'the Sixties' as being non-standard. I think I've been clear here how high I'd set the bar before I could rate it as "acceptable" nonetheless.

you're warning them what might happen if they make the incorrect choice.

And just what might happen to them? 40 licks with a wet noodle? The displeasure of those who disagree with their use of capitals? Capitalizing or not capitalizing Sixties will not interfere with reading it.

I never thought of the Fifties as a phenomenon.

I think I could only see the fifties as a phenomenon when directly contrasted to the phenomenon of the sixties.

When I see 'the Fifties'

When I see 'the Fifties' or 'the Sixties' or any other decade framed that way, my first impulse is to ask "Which century?".

Of course part of that might be a result of being an IT professional who survived y2K remediation efforts. It's made me a bit pedantic about using 4 digit years in numbers and even specifying the century when done as text.

my first impulse is to ask "Which century?".

That's a fair point. This is what CMoS says about that:

9.4 Decades.
Decades are either spelled out [as long as the century is clear] and lowercased or expressed in numerals.

I have found the context is enough to make the century clear most of the time.

* * *

At the risk of starting another handbag fight, do you use an apostrophe to show something has been omitted when showing a year or decade with only two digits? e.g. the '60s or the 60s.

I think a careful author should.

At the risk of starting another handbag fight, do you use an apostrophe to show something has been omitted when showing a year or decade with only two digits?

No, because, I never use two digit years. I have specified decades as the 1960s, 1950s, 1990s.

I don't think in the case of two digit years that the apostrophe is necessary. It ought to be obvious to anyone with enough brains to know what year it is that the century was omitted.

Someone writing "the 10s" in 2018 might mean the 2010s or they might mean the 1910s or even the 1810s.
However, it's exceedingly unlikely, absent very clear context pointing in that direction, that they are referring to the first century, the 0010s.

That said, I wouldn't be bothered by someone using an apostrophe to show the omitted century in a a two digit year or decade.

It ought to be obvious to anyone with enough brains to know what year it is that the century was omitted.

I agree it's absolutely obvious the century has been omitted. So why bother? My answer is: to show readers I do bother - even when something is obvious.

I see value in demonstrating to readers efforts to get even trivial details "right". I think that allows more creative freedom. Once the trust of readers is established, an author may "break rules" to create artistic effects without fear readers may suspect a mistake.

I know I'm preaching to a small choir here and the heretics will probably starting baying for my blood soon. I'm used to that.

I agree it's absolutely obvious the century has been omitted. So why bother? My answer is: to show readers I do bother - even when something is obvious.

And that is a perfectly valid reason. As I said before I avoid the issue by not omitting the century.

Of course, the usual excuse/reason for omitting the century even in text (as opposed to a database) is to save space. However, by adding the apostrophe you've cut the space savings from 2 characters, to 1. At that point, why still omit the century?

In that case, writing "nineteen-hundred and sixty seven" becomes a bit tedious!

That may be true, but absent very clear context as to what century is being referred to, a decade specified without a century will always be ambiguous.

But people (mostly British?) use til the same way.

Not quite. 'Til is a contraction of until. Till is a synonym of until and both have existed in English for a long time.

Until took over as the more common choice during the 19th century and is now used by most. Till remained more popular in British English longer, and is still more common in British English than American.

CMoS 5.220 states:

till. This is a perfectly good preposition and conjunction (e.g. open till 10 p.m.). It is not a contraction of until and should not be written 'til.

The contraction 'til is very rare, even in fiction. It is certainly considered incorrect in formal writing.

why is CMoS saying I can't write that? Or is CMoS ignoring dialogue?

If you read the quote carefully you'll see CMoS only says you can't write 'til as a contraction of till. It doesn't say you can't write it as a contraction of until.

Regarding contractions it says this elsewhere:

5.103 Contractions.
Most types of writing benefit from the use of contractions ... Think before using one of the less common contractions, which often don't work well in prose, except perhaps in dialogue or quotations.

until.

The farmer will til his fields. The magician has a spell that will reverse all his work. The magician will until the farmer's field.

The Gay Nineties

Was the period from 1890 to 1899. The Gay nineties was from 1990 to 1999. The meaning of "gay" adjusted to homosexual.

That was what the other site I found said. Periods are capitalized, like the Classical period. But the genre — classical music — is not. Elizabethan music is a period.

It's not that it's a period; it's that "Elizabeth" is a proper noun, being a specific person's actual name. Similarly, it's "Christian rock", not "christian rock" or "Christian Rock".

I'd appreciate your opinion on this.

I said above:

I cannot see a logical explanation why 'sixties' should not be capitalised.

Is it simply a matter of there being no reason to show something as a proper noun when its literal interpretation already identifies precisely what you mean?

Periods are capitalized

How do you capitalize a period?
"PERIOD"?

Maybe a colon ":" would be a capitalized period, with two of them.

Another option might be "MENSTRUATING".

Maybe a colon ":" would be a capitalized period, with two of them.

See now, I would have said that a capitalized . is a !

all this time I've been putting lowercase periods on all of my sentences!

You should stop doing that, fully.

I'll stay with a lowercase period in my stories, because the uppercase character for my keyboard comes out as the closing angle symbol >

Your problem is greater than, I thought.

Re : Your problem is greater than, I thought.
Either, my problem is greater than I thought, or you missed my joke.

I just tested if entering the word into dictionary.com will tell you whether or not capitals are needed.

I entered 'elizabethan' and, as expected, it returned the definition for 'Elizabethan'.

I then tried 'Country and Western'. Hold onto your seat tight, Switch, lest you fall over. It returned the definition for 'country-and-western'!

What grammarly.com said (and they're a reliable reference) is that by capitalizing it you differentiate it from the common use of the word.

Yes, when there is a common use of the word, but that is frequently not so with proper nouns.

That seems like a better way to explain the point I've been trying to make. Initial capitals tell readers the author is identifying something specific (or a specific group), and that knowing that should be enough for them to identify which is meant. For example, 'The White House is a big white house.' The capitals tell readers the author is saying there is only one white house they could mean, and that's enough for readers to figure out they must mean the big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue.

What about the Internet (internet)? I read somewhere in the last year or so that They Who Shall NOt be Disobeyed have ruled that Internet (capitalized since about 1976 or so) would now be lowercase (internet).
I did NOT read the logic of the change.
If a proper noun is (as I was taught back during the Dark Ages) the name of a particular person, place or thing, Internet seems to me to qualify.

However, she says in: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/ap-will-no-longer-capitalize-internet-and-web

Looks like both the AP and CMOS decided to forego their longtime practice because of pressure from users of the Internet itself. The story announcing the change for AP said they had had "good reason" to capitalize Internet for years (I'm guessing that's because it's a proper noun, but the story doesn't say so), and they decided to lowercase the word because of widespread practice, abandoning the "proper noun" rule.

AP said they had had "good reason" to capitalize Internet for years (I'm guessing that's because it's a proper noun ...)

I do not believe 'internet' is, or ever was, a proper noun.

A proper noun is not merely a word or phrase which uniquely identifies something; it is a name which uniquely identifies something. The definite article is used to identify specific instances of things that are literally described by common nouns.

Consider these sentences:
(A) The Internet is growing rapidly.
(B) Internet is growing rapidly.
(C) The internet is growing rapidly.

I think A is grammatically incorrect. If a proper noun, 'Internet', already uniquely identifies something there is no reason to use the definite article.

If 'Internet' is a proper noun then B is correct.

If 'internet' is a common noun then C is correct. I think it always has been a common noun.

* * *

ETA. There are a few proper nouns which contain the definite article, even though the 'the' is usually in lowercase. I think that situation is quite different. I find it hard to think of examples of those when the definite article is not required.

A proper noun is not merely a word or phrase which uniquely identifies something; it is a name which uniquely identifies something. The definite article is used to identify specific instances of things that are literally described by common nouns.

My mother would agree with you.

My mother would agree with you.

I have no idea what you're getting at. Is she German? Are you saying you don't agree?

Are you saying you don't agree?

I would have written 'My Mother' if I wouldn't agree with you.

I think A is grammatically incorrect. If a proper noun, 'Internet', already uniquely identifies something there is no reason to use the definite article.

There are plenty of proper nouns that take the definite article. Some of them have already been mentioned in this very thread. Sometimes by you.

The White House, the Roaring Twenties, the Gay Nineties, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, the Rhine...

The Internet was originally just one of a number of networks of networks, each with their own name (Merit Network, Tymnet, CYCLADES, Telenet, BITNET, etc.), but it's done its job so well that, over the last thirty years or so, basically all of the others have either died out or been assimilated into it. Does it somehow stop being a proper noun because it ate all of its peers?

(Weirdly, of "Internet", "internet", "Internets", and "internets", the last is the only one my browser flags as wrong.)

There are plenty of proper nouns that take the definite article. Some of them have already been mentioned in this very thread. Sometimes by you.

I concede. My thought that the use of the definite article may matter was rubbish.

I think A is grammatically incorrect. If a proper noun, 'Internet', already uniquely identifies something there is no reason to use the definite article.

So, under your rule, when we write "the Bronx," referring to one of the five boroughs of New York City, we are gramatically incorrect? Under your rule, we should write "the bronx," because it is preceded by the definite article? The same with El Salvador?

only that some proper nouns include a capitalize definitive article, while others do not. It's handled on a case by case basis.

And you run into odd cases like "The Bronx", where a definitive article is actually part of the proper noun.

And you run into odd cases like "The Bronx", where a definitive article is actually part of the proper noun.

Those cases are almost always written with a lowercase 'the'.

Ngrans suggests 'the Bronx' is preferred by almost all, despite anything some local administrators may have done in the past.

Ngrans suggests 'the Bronx' is preferred by almost all, despite anything some local administrators may have done in the past.

1. I'm not suggesting "the Bronx" is incorrect, especially in informal usage.

2. It's not just some local administrators doing it in the past. Even today, the only form used in official government documents is "The Bronx", because that is the borough's official legal name.

I'm not suggesting "the Bronx" is incorrect, especially in informal usage
... the only form used in official government documents is "The Bronx", because that is the borough's official legal name.

Okay. I'll stick with what people do, not lawyers. :-)

Okay. I'll stick with what people do, not lawyers. :-)

Which is fine. My point wasn't that "the" in "the Bronx" should be capitalized, but that in this case, "the" is actually part of the proper noun, not a separate article.

"The" is not part of it.

Apparently you didn't read what I had posted earlier.

It's true, that it's the Bronx because of the Bronck(not Broncks) family.

However, when the area became a borough of NYC, "The Bronx" including the "the" was adopted as it's official name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronx#Etymology_and_naming

The Bronx is referred to with the definite article as "The Bronx", both legally[25] and colloquially.[26]

https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2006/new-york-city-administrative-code-new/adc02-202_2-202.html

§ 2-202 Division into boroughs and boundaries thereof. The city of New York is hereby divided into five boroughs to be designated,respectively: Manhattan, The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The above is from the NYC Administrative code. As can be plainly seen, it is not the case that the name of the Borough is "Bronx" and "the" is used in referring to it because of the tradition of reference to the area as belonging to the Broncks family. Rather, the full proper name of the borough is "The Bronx", including the "the".

But if you're American, surely that's only four boroughs:

Nope, the Oxford comma, if you can't tell from the name is a British thing, not an American thing. In American English, it has been very common to not use a comma before the and separating the final two items in a list.

Nope, the Oxford comma, if you can't tell from the name is a British thing, not an American thing.

Nope. It's not really a British or American thing - but it's more American than British.

IIRC, the reason for the name was that, long ago, Oxford University was the exception in Britain that did use it.

You can be pretty sure that newspapers everywhere do not use it. Excluding newspapers, most American style guides recommend its use while most British style guides suggest writers stick to one style or the other. The Wiki article lists recommendations by various style guides.

I think AJ is less wrong than you this time.

So, under your rule, when we write "the Bronx," referring to one of the five boroughs of New York City, we are gramatically incorrect?

My post does not say that. The ETA I added long before your comment explicitly notes there are a small number of proper nouns which include a lowercase 'the'.

Note that's the Associated Press,

If proper nouns preceded by the word "the" should be made lowercase, then it should be "the associated press."

as if I and Ross claimed it as gospel

Please leave me out of your comments.

I made one post when I suggested the definite article may be relevant. I added an ETA noting a few proper nouns include the definite article. I later conceded my first thought was wrong.

I'm not going to respond to any of PotomacBob's recent posts. If I ever said anything like what he says I did I have since retracted those statements.

Alas, the "Internet" is not the proper name of a specific thing, but is instead a singular group name for a massively coordinated system of competing websites. Thus, there's really no reason to capitalize it. You refer to the Prime Minister by his title because he IS the prime minister, but you don't call the interstate highway system the "Interstate Highway System". It just a bunch of roads, not a specific entity.

The Interstate Highway System is in fact a specific named entity. Its full proper name is "the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways".

So, under your rule, when we write "the Bronx," referring to one of the five boroughs of New York City, we are gramatically incorrect?

No, because in this case the official legal name of the borough is "The Bronx", not Bronx.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bronx#Etymology_and_naming

The name "Bronx" originated with Jonas Bronck, who established the first settlement in the area as part of the New Netherland colony in 1639.

The Bronx is referred to with the definite article as "The Bronx", both legally[25] and colloquially.[26]

The region was apparently named after the Bronx River and first appeared in the "Annexed District of The Bronx" created in 1874 out of part of Westchester County. It was continued in the "Borough of The Bronx", which included a larger annexation from Westchester County in 1898. The use of the definite article is attributed to the style of referring to rivers.[28][29] Another explanation for the use of the definite article in the borough's name is that the original form of the name was a possessive or collective one referring to the family, as in visiting "the Broncks", "the Bronck's", or "the Broncks'".[30]

Probably due to the "melting pot" effect. In most continental european languages to use a comma before the and is plain wrong.

I doubt that. Oxford University was established while most Europeans were still living in caves.

It's the only other one that I'm aware of ... At least among U.S. English place names.

I know you grow a lot of oranges but America Is Not the Only Country. There is 'the Netherlands' and 'The Gambia', and 'the Ukraine' is still common.

I know you grow a lot of oranges but America Is Not the Only Country. There is 'the Netherlands' and 'The Gambia', and 'the Ukraine' is still common.

The official name of the Koninkrijk der Nederlanden isn't English. Nor is Україна, which does not in fact include a definite article, and my experience is that Ukrainians get annoyed when English-speakers add one.

The Gambia does include the definite article in their formal name, which I was not previously aware of... I've only ever heard it referred to as simply "Gambia". The Bahamas include the article in their formal name, too.

The Hague includes the definite article, too, but, again, it's a literal translation of the Dutch Den Haag.

Can't you take a joke? I had a dig at you because your post was so very, very America-centric.

Koninkrijk der Nederlanden isn't English

True, but irrelevant to my post: I write in English.

According to dictionary.com, both 'the Netherlands' and 'The Gambia' are the correct forms in English.

And according to ngrams, until 1980, 'Ukraine' followed 'the' over 50% of the times it was used it English. As I said, 'the Ukraine' is still common.

Los Angeles ("The Angels")

The full original name in Spanish is: "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula". Which translates to: "the town of our lady the Queen of Angels of the River Porciúncula".

Las Vegas ("The Meadows")

Seriously? It's in the middle of a desert.

Seriously? It's in the middle of a desert.

I'm assuming it's a PR thing, like "Greenland".

I'm assuming it's a PR thing, like "Greenland".

from Wikipedia:

Erik the Red's recruitment of others to colonize Greenland has been characterized recently as a land scam, the scam (and the name) portraying Greenland as better farm land than in Iceland.

But:

Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later, and do not constitute primary sources for the history of early Norse Greenland. Modern understanding therefore mostly depends on the physical data from archeological sites. Interpretation of ice core and clam shell data suggests that between 800 and 1300, the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland experienced a relatively mild climate several degrees Celsius higher than usual in the North Atlantic, with trees and herbaceous plants growing, and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel. What is verifiable is that the ice cores indicate Greenland has had dramatic temperature shifts many times over the past 100,000 years.

To me it's clear, the Global Warming faction tries to dismiss arguments about Greenland really being green between 900 and 1200, it doesn't fit into their credo.

HM.

From today's article on Yahoo:

An error by a reporter, getting the name of the borough wrong, big surprise.

I actually quoted a section of the NYC Administrative code that names the boroughs and it's listed as "The Bronx", not "Bronx". Personally, I take that as definitive that "the" is inseparably part of the name of the borough.

An error by a reporter, getting the name of the borough wrong, big surprise.

I actually quoted a section of the NYC Administrative code that names the boroughs and it's listed as "The Bronx", not "Bronx". Personally, I take that as definitive that "the" is inseparably part of the name of the borough.

The article is part of the official name, but standard usage is that it's dropped when the name is used as an adjective.

"A firehouse in the Bronx" would be correct, where "a firehouse in Bronx" is wrong, but "a Bronx firehouse" is correct, and "a the Bronx firehouse" is, at the very least, non-standard usage.

"Of all the versions of Earth we visited, our homeworld was the only one where New York had a Bronx."

Bah, who needs The Bronx; Hell's Kitchen, Harlem, and Doc Savage are all in Manhattan.

"Of all the versions of Earth we visited, our homeworld was the only one where New York had a Bronx."

That uses 'Bronx' as a common noun meaning the class of all places with names containing 'Bronx' (spelt with a capital letter).

An error by a reporter, getting the name of the borough wrong

So, you would have the reporter write: firefighters at a The Bronx firehouse? (indefinite article followed by the formal name you insist everybody should use)
Or: firefighters at The Bronx firehouse? (implies there's only one firehouse in the Bronx)
If not either of those two examples, just how would you write that sentence?
I, personally, had no problem understanding what the reporter wrote.

If not either of those two examples, just how would you write that sentence?

A savage brawl between two warring groups of FDNY firefighters at a firehouse in the Bronx has sparked multiple investigations

If not either of those two examples, just how would you write that sentence?

As Ross at Play has suggested and as I've seen it worded in several other articles about the incident, I would go with "at a firehouse in the Bronx"

I would go with "at a firehouse in the Bronx"

Not "in The Bronx"? :-)

Not "in The Bronx"? :-)

We've been through that. I don't object to the lowercase the.

It's not an error. "Bronx" is used as an adjective — a Bronx firehouse.

I still consider it an error. You mentioned one article about the incident that said "a Bronx firehouse." I've since seen articles from two or three separate sources that all had it phrased as "a firehouse in the Bronx."

It's not an error. "Bronx" is used as an adjective — a Bronx firehouse.

I give that one a Bronx cheer.

It has to be a grammatical error if refers to the borough. The adjective should then be the entire place name.

Bronx is the name of the borough. It's just that when you refer to it as a noun it's "the Bronx."

I'm not going to argue. The evidence above suggests otherwise.

Other place names with a 'The' prefix also drop the 'The' when the name is used as an adjective.

Really? Can you find any examples using 'Netherlands', 'Gambia', or 'Bahamas' as adjectives?

Note. AJ updated his post four seconds before I posted my reply to what I quoted.

"We're going on a Black Mountains camping trip this weekend", not "We're going on a The Black Mountains camping trip this weekend"

I can find a lot of places named 'Black Mountains' but none named 'The Black Mountains'.

The Black Mountains, Monmouthshire.

That's not evidence it is not incorrect to write

"We're going on a Black Mountains camping trip this weekend"

instead of

"We're going on a camping trip in The Black Mountains this weekend"

* * *

I asked about these three: 'Netherlands', 'Gambia', or 'Bahamas'.

Dictionary.com lists the all as nouns - used with a definite article - but not as adjectives.

It lists these words as adjectives: 'Dutch', 'Gambian', and 'Bahamian'.

"Book a Bahamas cruise from Florida today!"

I think that's a mistake.

According to the evidence I have cited, that should be:
"Book a Bahamian cruise from Florida today!"

I made a tactical error in asking for 'examples' instead of 'evidence'. You were bound to be able to find examples by someone who didn't understand what they were doing.

Any evidence? About "place names"? That is what you said in your original post, before hurriedly changing it to "proper names", apparently because you realised you'd made an assertion which could not be substantiated.

Google "bahamas cruise" and you'll have your evidence.

I agree "Bahamas cruise" is acceptable in American English, because American English does not accept the definite article as part of the name of the Bahamas. See dictionary.com.

I do not believe it is correct in British English. In British English it should be "Bahamian cruise".

I do not believe "Netherlands" and "Gambia" are acceptable as an adjective in either AmE or BrE. They should be "Dutch" and "Gambian".

Minor nit. Hopefully, they're going to "The Black Mountains".

I'd say that's one of many differences in preferred prepositions between AmE and BrE.

According to ngrams, The preference for 'to' over 'in' is stronger in AmE than BrE.

Minor nit. Hopefully, they're going to "The Black Mountains". If they were planning to spend the weekend in The Black Mountains, that implies they're planning to be caught in a landslide, or they're sleeping in a cave with the bears.

No.

I agree as well but would still never write 'a Bronx firehouse' because it sounds obnoxious to me.

As I said, grammatically I agree with you. However, when I read a 'Bronx firehouse', I'm envisioning a house made of Bronx, which is kinda difficult, of course. So it may be concise and grammatically correct but it still sounds obnoxious to me.

'A Bronx fire station' sounds marginally better to me but I still prefer 'a fire station in the Bronx', by far. I guess my dislike is caused by the almost homophone term 'bronze'.

http://grammarist.com/usage/the-bronx/

In the absence of any suitable adjectival form of 'Bronx', I'd agree that too many would use it as an adjective without the article for that to be considered wrong. I'd still consider rewriting to use 'the Bronx' as a noun better in many situations/

I return to my original question about this blanket assertion

Other place names [i.e. besides the Bronx] with a 'The' prefix also drop the 'The' when the name is used as an adjective.

... and ask: do you agree that is not so?

I gave three specific examples: 'the Netherlands', 'The Gambia', and 'the Bahamas'.

I cited evidence that the example among those is that Americans use 'Bahamas' - but Americans don't recognise the definite article as part of its name.

Absolutely not, and I have no clue why you'd expect any different.

I certainly did not expect you to agree. I just wanted to confirm this was yet another example where I state an opinion and cite supporting evidence and you assert a contrary opinion without citing any evidence. And I am referring to my original question regarding your "Other place names ..." statement, meaning other than the Bronx.

Didn't Doc Savage have a home in New York?

Doc Savage office was on the 86th floor of a New York City skyscraper, implicitly the Empire State Building. So at best he was the Manhattan bronze man.

Way to kill my attempt at humour :(

I just hope it'll stay dead and buried.

I've read one story where a character referred to another's house arrest as interment, and a second story where a character referred to the internment of his mother's ashes.

Perhaps the authors were computer programmers fond of the XOR operand: dead or buried, but not both.

Recently I've read one story where a character referred to another's house arrest as interment, and a second story where a character referred to the internment of his mother's ashes.

Once again I have to agree. While the first sounds like typical teenage hyperbole, the second example just sounds wrong and neither one is funny.

That's one author I won't bother with again :(

I still think 'it didn't dawn yet' would have been correct as well!

True, but that was at a time when I just had posted the chapter and I changed the sentence anyway. So now it's a purely academic question.

I still think 'it didn't dawn yet' would have been correct as well!

Opinion #31. Expletive deleted.

Opinion #32. I can't think of an example where I use a simple tense of the verb 'dawn'. Either progressive tenses, 'dawning', or perfect tenses, 'dawned', but simple tenses just seem wrong to me. I think it's because the nature of the verb is to continuously change, so a static state-of-being tense makes me feel as if time has stopped?

I'm excluding the other use of the verb 'dawn', meaning to realise, which I'd probably only ever use with 'on'.

Opinion #31. Expletive deleted.

I agree with #31. Mentioning 'senile old white males' was just a heinous attempt from AJ to discredit my valuable grammatical opinion.

Unlike some stories that credit one or many editors, your stories are remarkably free from schoolboy errors.

Thank you for such a nice backhanded compliment.

If you try to reason out, logically, the acceptable forms of English, you will surely go mad. How can you possibly learn a language in which slim chance and fat chance mean the same thing?

I hope that song gets stuck in your mind now, like it's stuck in mind from typing this. Dammit.

My mom used to have a version of that song on a children's song CD, bought for my niece to listen to on a trip, with the funniest ending to that song ever.

The lion on the bus goes roar, roar...
Lion on the bus?
< screams of terror >

Do Americans have policehouses, bushouses, trainhouses? Why did they change only fire station to firehouse?

Because Police don't live/sleep in police stations, bus drivers don't live/sleep in bus stations and train engineers/conductors don't live/sleep in train stations, but firemen do live/sleep in the fire station.