[General] Village or the village of .....

[Waawe]

Hi,

I was born in village Perth.
I was born in a village Perth.
I was born in the village Perth.
I was born in the village of Perth.
I was born in a village named Perth.

Which of them is the correct one?

Thank you.

 

[jutfrank]

The first two are wrong.
The third is very unnatural. For that reason, I'd count it as wrong.
The fourth and fifth are both fine but are saying quite different things.

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Use the fourth one.

 

[Waawe]

The first two are wrong.
The third is very unnatural. For that reason, I'd count it as wrong.
The fourth and fifth are both fine but are saying quite different things.

No doubt you will kindly unveil the difference for me, will you?

Would "I was born in Perth, a small village in Ireland." be the one I need?

 

[jutfrank]

No doubt you will kindly unveil the difference for me, will you?

No doubt. Prepare for the unveiling:

The fourth one says where you were born. That's probably all you want to say.

The fifth one says what the name of the place was, and what kind of place it was. You probably don't mean to say that.

Would "I was born in Perth, a small village in Ireland." be the one I need?

That's very likely, yes.

I think you may be missing the point that what is the correct form to use depends on exactly what you want to do with the sentence. This includes things like who is going to read it, what kind of text (spoken or written) the sentence is a part of, and what information you want to focus on. In short, correct use depends on context.

 

[Waawe]

I think you may be missing the point that what is the correct form to use depends on exactly what you want to do with the sentence. This includes things like who is going to read it, what kind of text (spoken or written) the sentence is a part of, and what information you want to focus on. In short, correct use depends on context.

Not really. I'm quite aware of the importance context represents.

Quite frankly, I fail to see the difference between 4 a 5, despite your explanation. To me, the 2 sentences bear the same information - village and its name. It may be a nuance beyond the dude's capacity.

Is it correct to assume native speakers tend to avoid the combinations such as: the city of Boston, town Sheffield, or village Bath? They prefer to say: I come from Boston, a US city, I was born in Sheffield, a town in the west of England, or I live in Bath, a village in the west of Canada?

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Not really. I'm quite aware of the importance context represents.

Quite frankly, I fail to see the difference between 4 a 5, despite your explanation. To me, the 2 sentences bear the same information - village and its name. It may be a nuance beyond the dude's capacity.

Is it correct to assume native speakers tend to avoid the combinations such as: the city of Boston, town Sheffield, or village Bath? They prefer to say: I come from Boston, a US city, I was born in Sheffield, a town in the west of England, or I live in Bath, a village in the west of Canada?

Yes, it's the same information. The difference is that we would say one and not the other. No native speaker will ever say "I live in village Perth."

We might say "I live in Perth village" to distinguish it from the rural part of Perth. Or "I live in a village, Perth."

But that wasn't your question.

 

[jutfrank]

I fail to see the difference between 4 a 5, despite your explanation. To me, the 2 sentences bear the same information - village and its name. It may be a nuance beyond the dude's capacity.

Try thinking about this: Which version (4 or 5) would you use if you knew for a fact that your listener was already familiar with Perth?

Is it correct to assume native speakers tend to avoid the combinations such as: the city of Boston, town Sheffield, or village Bath? They prefer to say: I come from Boston, a US city, I was born in Sheffield, a town in the west of England, or I live in Bath, a village in the west of Canada?

Not really, no. It isn't really a matter of preference, though style does play some part. It's basically about the different uses that different forms have.

As I tried to suggest before, the city of Boston is correct and natural, the town Sheffield is grammatical and possible in some contexts but in many would be unnatural, and village Bath is completely wrong.

To attempt to simplify this for you, I'd ask you to ignore number 3 and just follow this simple formula:

I was born in [the village of] Bath.

The bracketed part must include both the and of, and village can be replaced with town/city/borough, etc. The use of the definite article in the bracketed part means that the speaker is making reference to the place. There are a few reasons to do this that I won't go into now.

Now, if you are confident that the person you're talking to has no idea about the place where you are born, because for example they are from a different country, or because your tiny village is largely unknown, then you will likely want to bring into focus the identity of the place. Another way to say that is that you will change the way you make reference to the place. You could do that, to varying degrees of description, in any of the following ways:

I was born in a village called Bath.
I was born in a small village called Bath.
I was born in a small Scottish village called Bath.
I was born in a small village on the outskirts of Alphaville, called Bath.

 

[GoesStation]

I was born in [the village of] Bath.

The bracketed part must include both the and of, and village can be replaced with town/city/borough, etc.

Oddly though, it doesn't work well with county or township in American English -- at least, not in Ohio. I happen to live in a township which adjoins Bath Township, Greene County, Ohio (USA). The township of Bath just sounds wrong. I might say I live in in the state of Ohio; specifically, in the unincorporated village of Goes Station, which is in Xenia Township, Greene County.

Township has a different meaning in some of the Northeastern states. It's possible that the township of Bath would be fine in Pennsylvania or New York. I don't know.

 

[jutfrank]

Oddly though, it doesn't work well with county or township in American English -- at least, not in Ohio. I happen to live in a township which adjoins Bath Township, Greene County, Ohio (USA). The township of Bath just sounds wrong. I might say I live in in the state of Ohio; specifically, in the unincorporated village of Goes Station, which is in Xenia Township, Greene County.

That's interesting. All of those work perfectly well in British English, and I assume in other varieties.

I have no way of explaining your bizarre and eccentric American habits, sorry.