Fun Stuff > CHATTER
English is weird
GarandMarine:
Mexican. Cuban.
The Seldom Killer:
Pretty much all of them really. Ethnic groupings have this handy ability of being able to be applied to things other than people.
Papersatan:
Well it would only work for ones where the demonym is the same as the adj, that said I'm still not sure it's actually confusing, like it could work in an intentionally set up joke, but not an accidental misunderstanding. People are countable, and food is not, so you would need an article or a number, and also it would get a plural. Even if you avoided the word 'eat' and said "I'm having Italian" it would mean a person unless you'd set up a comparison of the person to food. (Say by waggeling your eyebrows at a friend who knows you're dating an Italian)
It could work if you used "some" because it has a dual meaning:
I'm eating some Italian for dinner.
As an amount of an uncountable thing (food)
As an expression of non-specificity (person)
hedgie:
Now I'm thinking of the film "Eating Raoul".
Akima:
--- Quote from: Papersatan on 15 Jan 2015, 07:51 ---I'm eating some Italian for dinner.
--- End quote ---
Mmm... But the countability problem raises its head again, doesn't it? If you were actually a cannibal, you'd say "I'm eating some of an Italian", "I'm eating an Italian", or (if you were very hungry) "I am eating Italians. Italian without a definite or indefinite article is normally read as an adjective. "I am eating Italian" simply leaves the word "food" after "Italian" unstated but understood.
I tend to regard Chinese as an adjective. "She is Chinese" is fine, but "She is a Chinese" sounds a bit off in my ears, though I suppose it is no different from the way American is used as an adjective as well as a demonym. 我是中国人 literally means "I am China person", but depending on the context, could be translated legitimately either as "I am Chinese" or "I am a Chinese person". If you wanted to be absolutely specific about the latter meaning, you'd have to say: 我是一中国人 (the character 一 is used as an article here, equivalent to "a").
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