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I was reading Oxford guide to english language about the use of capital letters and saw this: We use capital letters with the names of places: Australia, New York, Oxford. When a noun is part of a name, it has a capital letter too: the River Nile, the Humber Bridge, Fifth Avenue, Paddington Station. And I have seen some pages that use the adjective after or before. It happens with lakes, too.

James K
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AzafoCossa
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    What is your question? – Michael Harvey Jun 02 '21 at 20:51
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    Although both constructions can be found, over the past 100 years, the Nile River has overtaken the River Nile, and now appears to be about 4 times as popular. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=the+Nile+River%2Cthe+River+Nile&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cthe%20Nile%20River%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cthe%20River%20Nile%3B%2Cc0 – Ronald Sole Jun 02 '21 at 20:54
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    I don't see any adjectives. British rivers are mostly called River Tyne, River Thames etc. In other countries the words are usually the other way round: Hudson River, Amazon River. Once you've established a river's name you can leave out the word "River" and call it the Yangtze, the Tyne, the Amazon etc. – Old Brixtonian Jun 02 '21 at 21:08
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    Btw, Lakes are treated the same: "...we reached Lake Windermere. The next day we sailed across Windermere,,," – Old Brixtonian Jun 02 '21 at 21:27
  • @OldBrixtonian, except in the lake district only Bassenthwaite is a lake, "Lake Windermere" is a tautology as it already has "mere" in the name. – Separatrix Jun 03 '21 at 08:45
  • @Separatrix: Ha! It was a trap, quiz-lovers. I meant Lake Wastwater. – Old Brixtonian Jun 03 '21 at 10:05
  • @OldBrixtonian, same trap, Wast Water is a water, as are Derwent Water, Ullswater, Conniston Water. There's only one of the set that can correctly be called "Lake". – Separatrix Jun 03 '21 at 10:10
  • The Nile is simply the Nile. Anyone who says different is simply in... https://bit.ly/3id9UOw – Strawberry Jun 03 '21 at 10:17
  • About lakes, here in Canada you usually visit Lake Louise and Moraine Lake in the same outing, as they are just a few km apart. – Martin Argerami Jun 03 '21 at 12:02
  • @Separatrix presumably you object to the River Avon too? – mdewey Jun 03 '21 at 12:37
  • @Separatrix: I KNOW. Get off my back!! :-) – Old Brixtonian Jun 03 '21 at 12:40
  • @mdewey, Afon Avon? All the way! – Separatrix Jun 03 '21 at 12:54
  • Oxford Guide to the English Language: a title. Also, the word English is always capitalized like any language. – Lambie Jun 03 '21 at 16:03
  • @Separatrix Pendle Hill, in Lancs, UK. Pen: Celtic(?) for "hill". Then Penhul, from hyll, old English for "hill". And "Hill", modern English, because, why not? So, Hill Hill Hill.... – SusanW Jun 03 '21 at 21:19
  • In British English, "Lake", "River", "Mount" come before the name except for some "foreign" names. But as a further curiosity, Lakes and Mounts don't attract a definite article, whereas rivers do. Also, you can put "River" before any river name for clarification, but you can't do the same with mountain names: it's never "Mount K2" (though I've seen "Mount Helvellyn"). And Scottish mountains are of course Ben or Bheinn (depending on the whims of the first official surveyors). "Glen" comes before the name, "Valley" comes after. Don't look for any logic. – Michael Kay Jun 04 '21 at 13:10

3 Answers3

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In British English rivers are most often referred to as "The X", but more formally as "The River X". "The X River" is common only for some American rivers, and some where the name may be seen as a description (eg "The Yellow River")

Consequently, in British usage, "The River Nile" is far more likely than "The Nile River".

In American English, things are different, I believe.

Checking on the GloWbE corpus:

  • Nile River: 86 US; 54 CA; 26 GB
  • River Nile: 23 US; 11 CA: 65 GB
Dhanishtha Ghosh
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Colin Fine
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    Or even just "The Nile". – Shufflepants Jun 03 '21 at 15:38
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    I'm actually slightly surprised that there were as many as 26 hits for "Nile River" in the British corpus. I'd have expected the preference for "River Nile" to be (even more) overwhelming. – rjpond Jun 03 '21 at 16:29
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    What's with capitalizing the word the?? – Lambie Jun 03 '21 at 17:38
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    @rjpond: seven of these spell "river" without a capital, suggesting they are not treating it as a unit "Nile River", but as "Nile", with an appended river. 7 follow the words with a noun ("valley", "delta", "bridge", or "traffic"), suggesting either that it groups as (Nile) (River x), or that "Nile River" is a modifier: to my ears, "RIver Nile" doesn't work well in that use, so it's a choice between "Nile River valley" and "valley of the River Nile". Certinaly only two of the 65 UK instances of "River Nile" are followed by a noun. – Colin Fine Jun 04 '21 at 12:01
  • @ColinFine Thank you. – rjpond Jun 04 '21 at 13:00
  • In BrE "river X" is also used to distinguish the river from a different entity called just "X". For example "Erewash" is the name of a UK parliamentary constituency, and also a local government administrative area, as opposed to the "River Erewash." (Not to mention the Erewash Valley railway line - the second busiest freight line in the UK - or the Erewash canal). – alephzero Jun 04 '21 at 13:40
  • @alephzero: that's pretty universal, for georgraphic names and I would guess for languages too. My point was about whether the distinguishing word goes before or after. River usually goes before in BrE but not AmE. Lake and Mount (but not Mountain) usually go before in all Englishes I think. I can't think of anything else that goes before. – Colin Fine Jun 04 '21 at 14:57
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In British English "the River Nile" is the preferred form. Other rivers follow the same pattern: "the River Thames". It is also correct just to use the name of the river "the Nile" etc.

This is dialectically different from American English where, for example "the Missouri River" is common. But similarly, you can just say "the Missouri".

Then name isn't an adjective-noun form. It is a compound proper noun.

The River Nile flows from Lake Victoria near Mount Kilimanjaro.

(The grammar is fine, even if the geography isn't!)

James K
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My answer from England would be, the Nile, or the Thames.

Eddie Kal
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alan clark
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    Why? Would be great if you could add an explanation to this answer. – shin Jun 04 '21 at 09:08
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    Well known rivers aren't prefixed with River - unless there is scope for confusion with a Town or City. For example: the River Amazon. – Jeremy Boden Jun 04 '21 at 11:38