High Sierra Topix

ok. another round of grammar:

http://www.englishforums.com/English/Si ... b/post.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

you can decide which you choose. I choose Sierra.

russ

This isn't really a matter of English grammar, but Spanish. It should be Sierra, but that is a purest view going back to the origin of the name and in its "borrowed" form the purest definition does not necessarily carry the day.

I very much object to the redundancy of "Sierra Nevada Mountains", though. That is a very bad English corruption that builds in the redundancy. Even academic geologists have been known to use that term and I've gotten on such authors as a reviewer or editor. This same sort of redundancy creeps into English adoptions of mountain names in at least two languages I know of: One example is "Mount Fujiyama" which is redundant because the "Mount" is the "yama" (so Mt. Fuji is legit). Another famous one I've seen is Mount Taishan (the "Mt" is in "shan"--so Mt. Tai is how we should do it). We also have Matterhorn Peak in the Sierra but at least I've never heard of anyone refer to the Matterhorn in the Alps as "Mt. Matterhorn" or "Matterhorn Peak".

For me, "High Sierra", Sierra Nevada", "THE Sierra", or John Muir's "Range of Light". "The Sierras" is far too vague.

Sierra Nevada literally translates as "a mountain range, appearing as a saw, covered with snow". I think our early spanish settlers, and Muir summed it up perfectly.

I am currently reading John Fremont's journal of his exploration of OR/CA. He refers to it as the Great California Range.

I hear markskor is teaching a college course on this topic.

It's 5 days of intensive behavioral therapy so people know to leave that last "S" off.

It costs 1000 buxx and you get a certificate of completion.

Russ

I'll stick with Sierra.

My grammar is horrible so I simply forgive humans just being human and making mistakes.

1355 uses of "Sierras" on this site.

oops.. now 1356 or 1357..

It's the same with Buttermilk, so many people call it the Buttermilk(s) which is incorrect.

My favorite examply of this is BenBury Hill in Britain. Ben, Bury, and Hill all mean hill in different languages,. EVery time a new language became dominant they added another hill to the name.

And it's Sierra. As we say on our website: "Sierra, in Spanish, means “mountain range.” (Actually it has two meanings--the other one is a saw--as in the Sawtooth Range.)

So the range is the Sierra, not the Sierras. There are not many mountain ranges, there is one. And yes, we speak English here, not Spanish. That’s why we live in a state called California, in cities called Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and use words like patio, cargo, canyon, siesta, adobe, macho, corral, aficionado, …and don’t even get me started on food. Ay! Caramba!"