Why is this not "Acque Terme"?
-
1Why would it be “Acque Terme”?– DaGCommented Sep 14, 2018 at 9:27
-
4The attribute “Terme” has been added to the preexisting toponym of several towns as a form of advertising: Abano, Montecatini, Equi, Boario and so on. This happened also to German places which added “Bad” in front of their name (Bad Kissingen, Bad Pyrmont, Bad Godesberg,…).– egreg ♦Commented Sep 14, 2018 at 10:05
-
Ricardo answered why it doesn’t follow the expected grammar rule. In normal contemporary language, the ‘i’ ending is masculine plural and the ‘e’ is feminine plural.– WGroleauCommented Sep 14, 2018 at 16:35
-
@WGroleau: You seem to generalise from the nouns corresponding more or less to the first to Latin declensions. This is not the case, but there actually are feminine plurals in -i (reti, chiavi, fasi, travi and many more feminine terms with a singular in -e, mostly from third-declension Latin words).– DaGCommented Sep 14, 2018 at 20:08
-
As a Spanish speaker, I realize there are many exceptions, but I was using the majority for my generalization. One can't learn the exceptions without asking (or digging in dictionaries). Especially if one doesn't speak Latin. :-)– WGroleauCommented Sep 14, 2018 at 21:58
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
According to the website of the town http://comune.acquiterme.al.it/la-citta/noticia/la-storia-del-comune-di-acqui-terme, it was founded by Romans on the II century B.C. and the latin name was Aquae Statiellae.
From late antiquity it appears as Acquis that in vernacular will become then Acqui. This means that Acqui is not a different gender but a different latin case.
The second term "Terme" was added officially in 1956.
answered Sep 14, 2018 at 7:37
You got an excellent answer already, but I would like to point out more explicitly that in Acqui Terme the word Terme is not something that needs to agree with the name of the town, but rather a modifier that indicates the presence of thermal baths near the city.
This is in fact a relatively common phenomenon. Let me show you some examples
- Jesolo Lido
- Eraclea Mare
- Latina Scalo (thanks to @DaG for this one!)
- Arquà Petrarca
In the first two cases, this is also to advertise that the town is in a different location than the "main" town of the same name, and specifically on the beach front (Lido meaning coast and Mare meaning Sea). In the nearby coast you can see several more examples of this.
answered Sep 14, 2018 at 19:22
-
1Great answer. I'd add, as modifiers to “main names”, Scalo too (as in Orte Scalo or Latina Scalo, where the railway station is not close to the town itself).– DaGCommented Sep 14, 2018 at 20:03
-
1Many towns and villages changed their name after the unification of Italy in order to distinguish them; for instance the two ‘Arquata’ became ‘Arquata Scrivia’ and ‘Arquata del Tronto’ and, most notably, the two ‘Reggio’ became ‘Reggio nell'Emilia’ and ‘Reggio di Calabria’. Other additions were made to honor important citizens: the cited ‘Arquà Petrarca’ for Francesco Petrarca who lived in the village in his last years and is buried there; also ‘Sasso Marconi’ for Guglielmo Marconi and ‘Riese Pio X’ for the pope who was born there.– egreg ♦Commented Sep 16, 2018 at 9:52
-