June 14, 2007: Issue 192
State and city names function just fine as modifiers without any alteration:
this New York house
true Texas style
a Chicago couple
Save the suffixes for nouns that denote residents of those states and cities:
this native New Yorker
style that suited the Texan
a couple of Chicagoans
The exception is Hawaii, which had a long history as its own kingdom before it became a U.S. state:
Hawaiian cuisine
Hawaiian prints
With countries, use suffixes to create modifiers:
French history
Japanese heritage
Moroccan flavor
When you run across a sentence that mixes state and country modifiers, consider restructuring to preserve parallelism.
awkward: The designer was inspired by California and French coastal styles.
preferred: The designer looked to the coasts of France and California for inspiration.
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