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17:16 Apr 7, 2011
English to English translations [PRO] Social Sciences - Government / Politics / legal and usage political terminology
English term or phrase:COUNTRY of STATE
Can someone please clarify the proper use of COUNTRY of STATE, (when talking about non-U.S. states and talking about certain (European) nations, such as Germany, Greece etc.)
The text refers to certain countries OR states which would be included in the patent law. My inclination is to use "country" to avoid confusion with US states, but COUNTRY is also used to define land, while state is a legal term. Am I correct?
Explanation: State (with upper case 'S') is your best option.
The European Union has 'Member States', not countries. And some of those States contain several countries. That's the opposite of the US, or Mexico, (among others), where one country contains several states.
In any event, the context will steer the informed reader towards the appropriate interpretation of 'State'.
Could you please provide some more context, preferably the sentence you are working on as well as the sentence before and the sentence after - also the nature of the text. Is for a corporation, a govt agency, a private individual, something academic? Or something else? And also who is the target audience for the document?
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Answers
40 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): -1
country of state
nation state
Explanation: "nation state" is one good choice to solve your conundrum.
HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES:
The terms nation, state, country and nation-state are used to refer to political, economic, social and cultural actors in the international system. The modern nation-state refers to a single or multiple nationalities joined together in a formal political union. The nation-state determines an official language(s), a system of law, manages a currency system, uses a bureaucracy to order elements of society, and fosters loyalties to abstract entities like "Canada," "the United States," and so on.
What's the difference between these concepts?
A nation-state differs from a "state" or a "nation" for a couple of important reasons:
A nation refers only to a socio-cultural entity, a union of people sharing who can identify culturally and linguistically. This concept does not necessarily consider formal political unions.
A state refers to a legal/political entity that is comprised of the following: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) a government ; and d) the capacity to enter into relations with other states. http://www.towson.edu/polsci/ppp/sp97/realism/whatisns.htm
A State (note the capital "S") is a self-governing political entity. The term State can be used interchangeably with country.
The nation-state is a state that self-identifies as deriving its political legitimacy from serving as a sovereign entity for a country as a sovereign territorial unit.[1] The state is a political and geopolitical entity; the nation is a cultural and/or ethnic entity. The term "nation-state" implies that the two geographically coincide, and this distinguishes the nation-state from the other types of state, which historically preceded it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_state
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 44 mins (2011-04-07 18:00:33 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Here is a defintion from a University Professor at Auburn University:
Nation state
A form of state in which those who exercise power claim legitimacy for their rule partly or solely on the grounds that their power is exercised for the promotion of the distinctive interests, values and cultural heritage of a particular nation whose members ideally would constitute all, or most of, its subject population and all of whom would dwell within the borders. http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/nation_state
Stephanie Ezrol United States Local time: 21:06 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 20
Notes to answerer
Asker: irrelevant. I am looking for COUNTRY and STATE, not nation-state.
Any suggestoins?
7 hrs confidence: peer agreement (net): +2
country of state
State
Explanation: State (with upper case 'S') is your best option.
The European Union has 'Member States', not countries. And some of those States contain several countries. That's the opposite of the US, or Mexico, (among others), where one country contains several states.
In any event, the context will steer the informed reader towards the appropriate interpretation of 'State'.
xxxmediamatrix Local time: 21:06 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 12
Grading comment
Selected automatically based on peer agreement.
49 mins confidence: peer agreement (net): +1
country of state
Country or State
Explanation: Consider:
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 51 mins (2011-04-07 18:07:20 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
State, Country, and Nation — Infoplease.com
The criteria that define a country, an independent State, and a nation. www.infoplease.com/world/statistics/state-country-nation.ht... - Cached - Similar
Background Notes
Please choose a country or other area, or a Region. ..... of Public Affairs, manages this site as a portal for information from the U.S. State Department. ... www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/ - Cached - Similar
AZ List of Country and Other Area Pages - US Department of State
Independent States in the World · Dependencies and Areas of Special ... www.state.gov › Miscellaneous Documents - Cached - Similar
Show more results from state.gov
:)) eski
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 4 hrs (2011-04-07 22:13:27 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
'Country' is the more usual choice.
Saludos,
eski
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 23 hrs (2011-04-08 16:42:18 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
more than one age is given then the law within that country or state varies ... If you know that the age of consent in your country differs from that ... www.avert.org/age-of-consent.htm - Cached -
eski Mexico Local time: 20:06 Works in field Native speaker of: English, Spanish
Notes to answerer
Asker: which do you recommend I use for the legal text in question?
The translation workplace 
peer agreement (net): -1
