"the X nation"

[Jonathan Lighter]

The University of Tennessee's "Big Orange Nation" appears in both forms, but anarthrous is seemingly preferred.

  JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: "the X nation"
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At 2:50 PM -0500 1/2/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>In recent years (or such is my impression) the word "nation" has
>come to be used in a special way--to refer to the aggregate of a
>school's students, alumni, boosters, and fans. The collective
>partisans of my university (the University of Georgia), for example,
>constitute "the Bulldog Nation"; that of my alma mater, "the
>Longhorn nation."
>
>It sounded very strange, however, when a sportscaster yesterday
>referred to "the Nebraska nation"--as if the corn state had seceded
>from the union (or as if an Indian tribe was being mentioned).
>
>Usually X in the phrase "the X nation" will be the school's mascot
>or the nickname of its athletic teams--"the War Eagle nation" or
>"the Cardinal nation"--though "the Auburn nation" or "the Stanford
>nation" doesn't sound wrong. But seeming to call a state a nation
>DOES! (Maybe "the University of Nebraska nation" wouldn't.)
>
>--Charlie
>
One of the most widely distributed of these has the obligatorily
anarthrous form "X nation", viz. "Red Sox Nation" (never "the Red
Sox Nation"). I always thought of it as being like "Cherokee
Nation". Are the arthrous versions really used as often?

LH

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