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Is it Los or Las Dopicos?

MCS019
Member
#1 · Posted: 3 Sep 2017 19:18
In The Broken Ear and Tintin and the Picaros, there are times it says both Los Dopicos and Las Dopicos. Which one is it?
jock123
Moderator
#2 · Posted: 3 Sep 2017 23:39
It's Alcazaropolis! ;-)

Actually, it's both Las and Los Dopicos!
There isn't any consistency to it, so both have to be accepted.
Hergé, being Belgian, will have been used to this, as Brussels, like much of Belgium is bilingual, being Bruxelles to French speakers, and Brussel to speakers of Flemish, and street names, places, stations etc. often have two names.
I'm not saying that that's the reason for the two names, but it could be that consistency in names wasn't a priority, or at least not a high one.
As has been pointed out before, San Teodoro and San Theodoros are also both used.
MCS019
Member
#3 · Posted: 4 Sep 2017 16:13
Great. Thank you very much!
JJohannes
Member
#4 · Posted: 18 Oct 2017 11:29
Assuming pseudo-Spanish or some other Romance language, the word/name Dopico, which probably doesn't mean anything, ends in -o, so it is a masculine word. Therefore the plural of El Dopico should linguistically be Los Dopicos. The arcticle Las is for feminine plural, like Las Dopicas or Las Palmas.

But it is of course possible that the "error" is intentional and the characters are really supposed to call it Las Dopicos as well.

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