Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ptsfc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!amdcad!lll-crg!qantel!ptsfa!ptsfc!rjw
From: rjw@ptsfc.UUCP (Rod Williams)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: "United States"
Message-ID: <507@ptsfc.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Jan-86 22:26:04 EST
Article-I.D.: ptsfc.507
Posted: Mon Jan 13 22:26:04 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 15-Jan-86 08:15:26 EST
References: <383@cisden.UUCP>
Reply-To: rjw@ptsfc.UUCP (Rod Williams)
Distribution: na
Organization: Pacific Bell
Lines: 14
Keywords: United States

In article <383@cisden.UUCP> john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) writes:
>Does anyone have an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century quotation using
>the phrase "the United States" as a singular noun?  It always used to
>be plural, but now it's nearly always singular.  When did it change?

 Thanks to Bartlett's Quotations, how about:

 "The United States has thirty-two religions but only one dish"
                      - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord (1754-1838)
-- 

 rod williams | {ihnp4,dual}!ptsfa!ptsfc!rjw
 -------------------------------------------
 pacific bell |  san ramon  |  california