Talk:Dukes County, Massachusetts

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Official Name[edit]

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The accurate legal name is the County of Dukes County. This page should be altered to reflect that. There is no place called Dukes County in Massachusetts. A quick perusal of official government sites will show this.

According to the County's own website, the law creating the county required it to be named "Dukes County". Of course there is a place called "Dukes County." The county's official explanation for the redundancy has never held water. It has always sought to explain the existence of the second "County" in "The County Of Dukes County" by citing the law creating the county. This is a red herring. The real question is why "The County Of ..." is pre-pended to the legally prescribed name. There is no law requiring it. If the law specifying the name is not valid, then the official explanation is without basis. If the law specifying the name is valid, then there needs to be an explanation of why the law is violated by prepending "The County Of ..." The usual explanations for the redundancy either miss the point, by attempting to explain the legally-required wording instead of the redundancy in the prefix; or by citing the law, not to explain the name specified in the law, but rather to explain why the name is not as specified by the law. The whole explanation for the redundancy is absurd, undermined by its own explanation.


While this is probably moot as regards the page name, given the "common names" principle, I'm curious as to why it has this name, officially or otherwise? From the same people who brought us the Department of Redundancy Department? Alai 17:58, 27 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Such redundancy is certainly unusual for a county, but parallels municipalities having "City" in the plain name (e.g., the City of Atlantic City in New Jersey).

A clue to the redundancy can be found by examining the wording of the Acts establishing the various Counties. In all other cases, only the plain name is mentioned: Suffolk, Middlesex, Hampshire, and so on. So following a pattern strictly, the word "County" must appear again when mentioning the formal name of the government.

There is no requirement to follow a pattern strictly. The act creating the county says that the name is Dukes County. Adding "County of" in front of it is not required by the act, in fact, it violates the act. There is no good reason for the redundancy, and the County's official publications on the subject do not provide any good reason. Strictly following the pattern is neither justified nor necessary. It is, simply put, redundant. It's a curiosity, but it's not based on the act that created the county. It's based on the hobgoblin of foolish consistenty, when the acts creating the counties are not consistent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 139.68.134.1 (talk) 20:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As in England, an unadorned county name was considered sufficient to designate an area. On legal documents, only the plain name of the county appears, followed by the abbreviation "ss." which seems to represent the term "Scilicet", translated variously as "witness" (imperative or subjunctive), "witnesseth", or "to wit". Example: Suffolk, ss. On the Vineyard, the usage is: Dukes County, ss.

"Dukes" is alone among county names in being somewhat descriptive. Franklin is named after a person, and Hampden appears to be made up. All the rest take either the name of a town within the original county boundaries, or else the name of an English county. Perhaps there is some sense that "Dukes", seemingly possessive, needs an actual noun after it.

Among inhabitants of the Vineyard, there seems to be a certain pride in the uniqueness the redundancy confers.

Changing the name of the page to "County of Dukes County" would imply the need for other pages to become "County of Suffolk", "County of Middlesex", and so on. It is probably better to consider that "once is enough" in this single case.

Monomoit 01:06, 17 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Poverty?[edit]

How could there be poor people in such an expensive place to live, do they have subsidized housing?

They have to have some cheap housing, even if it's not subsidized, because they need store clerks, garbagemen, restaurant workers, and the like. It's not feasible to commute to an island. Bostoner (talk) 02:49, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Government? Demographics?[edit]

Why is there a section on demographics in an article on a county when it's in a state with weak government and weak county identity? Isn't this covered under the constituent towns? And why isn't there a section on county government? Bostoner (talk) 02:49, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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