village of Kolmogory / village Kolmogory

[Dmitry_86]

Hello!

However, the reign of Ioann VI was short-lived; after 404 days, the daughter of the tsar Peter the Great, Elizabeth, took the throne in a coup-d'etat, and all of the young emperor's family was exiled to the village of Kolmogory

My intuition and my knowledge of English tell me to use "of" in this sentence, but I cannot formulate a general rule for such kinds of sentence. First goes the type of a residential area - the village. Second goes its particular name. Do we always use "of" in situations like this? Can we cross it out? Will it be a mistake?

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[Bevj]

I would say either 'to the village of Kolmogory' or 'to Kolmogory'. Obviously the first option makes it clear that Kolmogory is a village, which many people might not know.
I think that if the place referred to is well-known, the 'of' is not necessary. I wouldn't say 'I went on holiday to the city of Paris' - everyone knows that Paris is a city and the 'city of' is redundant.
Hope that helps

 

[Dmitry_86]

I would say either 'to the village of Kolmogory' or 'to Kolmogory'. Obviously the first option makes it clear that Kolmogory is a village, which many people might not know.
I think that if the place referred to is well-known, the 'of' is not necessary. I wouldn't say 'I went on holiday to the city of Paris' - everyone knows that Paris is a city and the 'city of' is redundant.
Hope that helps

Right, Bevj, everyone knows that Paris is a big city and the capital of France, but does really mean that we can say "I went on holiday to the city Paris" without "of"? This sentence strikes me as a little bit odd because I have probably never said such things this way. I would say either just "to Paris" or "to the city called Paris", though the latter is not a good option. I would like to emphasize once again that I am more interested in grammar and naturalness of this phrase if said in conversational English.

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[Forero]

"The village of ..." is wrong without the of. "The city of ...", "the town of ...", "the hamlet of ...", all require of. So do months, e.g. "the month of June". But we do not use the of with persons, vehicles, planets, stars, etc. - or with years: "the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin", "the starship Enterprise", "the planet Saturn", "the star Betelgeuse", "the year 2010".

 

[Dmitry_86]

"The village of ..." is wrong without the of. "The city of ...", "the town of ...", "the hamlet of ...", all require of. So do months, e.g. "the month of June". But we do not use the of with persons, vehicles, planets, stars, etc. - or with years: "the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin", "the starship Enterprise", "the planet Saturn", "the star Betelgeuse", "the year 2010".

Thanks, Forero! That is very informative what you have written above. Still as I can see no particular rule but just some instructions, which say that with residential areas and months we use "of" with some other types of noun you have enumerated we do not. Even so, this is better than nothing and I will definitely try remember. Furthermore, I know many of these things, for example, about people's names.

By the way, thanks for the word "hamlet". I have never heard or seen it before. Neither in literature nor in papers. In Russian we use many different words to describe villages depending on their total size, population, location, and many other criteria. As a guide I often tell tourists about them and teach them to distinguish between these places. I cannot use any specific terms because all dictionaries offer only one word for at least four or five Russian variants, which is not sufficient to reflect some national features of Russia. The word hamlet, according to what is expounded on in the dictionary, corresponds to one type of this village, The only thing I am not quite sure about is whether AE speakers will manage to understand the meaning because the term itself is British.

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