Forum - View topicAnimes? Mangas? It’s a pet peeve of mine…
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cardcaptormanda
 Posts: 237 Location: United States |
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Ok, am I the only one who is bothered when people use the word "animes" as the plural of anime? The same goes for "mangas." When I need to refer to anime in the plural, I still just use "anime" without the S. Using animes sounds just as silly as saying "sheeps" when referring to more than one, instead of "sheep." It's not like the Japanese use S for plurals, so adding an S to their words just sounds incorrect.
Has anyone else ever thought about/been bothered by this? Do you use "animes" to refer to more than one anime? Maybe you used to? Am I being too nit-picky? 
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11433 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I use "anime" and "manga" as both a singular and plural word.
I believe the Japanese put -tachi on the end of a word to make it plural, but anime-tachi and manga-tachi sound really weird, so I'm going to go on a limb and say those two words probably count as a singular and plural meaning  .
I don't really care if people put an 's' on the end, though I don't hear it much around me in the first place. It's actually pretty rare for me to even hear people do that, but everyone has their quirks, so I don't blame you for getting aggrivated over this  .
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Nagisa
Moderator
 Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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I believe that's more for people. "Bokutachi," "kodomotachi," and so on. And yes, adding the "s" onto Japanese nouns tends to get irritating sometimes. Oddly though, I find there are some words I don't mind it with. Like, when people say "animes" or "mangas" or "samurais," it gets a bit annoying. But when people say "ninjas" for example, I don't really mind it. Maybe it's just hearing that enough that I've become desensitised to it? |
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Aokage
 Posts: 160 Location: The Chaparral of California |
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Truth be told, i've never given much thought to such a detail. It seems liliputian at best...though I personally say anime and manga to express the singular or plural.
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shadow_guyver
 Posts: 307 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Doesn't bother me at all. At first it seems like they should bother me, but on further inspection, I don't mind either case.
Oh, and I use anime and manga as both singular and plural. |
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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yeah like the word anime and manga isn't irritating enough. Hear it enough time and it becomes part of your everyday vocabs.
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abunai
Old Regular
 Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Yes, precisely. Use -tachi where it wouldn't be totally inappropriate to use "and company" or "and others" in English. That's a fairly reliable rule of thumb. Anime and manga, like all Japanese words, do not use plurals. However... they have both been adopted into English, and the use of the plural marker "-s" may be forgiven. Even so, the unmarked original Japanese singular-and-plural anime and manga are grammatically quite all right, and I agree that they look better.
Hmm. Either you do it one way, or the other. Mix-and-match is just sloppy. It's either: "one samurai, two samurai, three samurai" and "one ninja, two ninja, three ninja" or it's: "one samurai, two samurais, three samurais" and "one ninja, two ninjas, three ninjas". This only applies to Japanese words that have been adopted into English. It definitely does not apply to words that appear as inserted foreign words - hence the differentiation in my two examples above. Notice that, in the first instance, I mark the words in italics, and do not differentiate between singular and plural. In the second, they're un-italicised, and pluralised as English words. - abunai |
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Nagisa
Moderator
Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Well, I'm not saying that one is any more correct or acceptable over the other, all I'm saying is that the one bothers me personally a little less than the other for whatever odd reason is floating around inside my brain. 
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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Neither am I; I'm saying that you should either use one or the other. Not both, because that's sloppy. I suppose you could use both, though, if you did it this way: "The three samurai went up against the seven ninjas." In that sentence, "samurai", being italicised, is identifiable as a foreign word inserted into the English sentence, and "ninjas", being unitalicised, is identifiable as an English word (loaned from a foreign language, but still as English as "curry" or "ombudsman"). Therefore, it is correct to ass the plural "-s" in the latter case, but omit it in the former. It looks monumentally stupid, though....
Heh... far be it from me to delve into the nature of the flotsam and jetsam that is floating around in the darkened recesses of your psyche... but if you put it in print, it becomes fair game for the grammar- and spelling Gestapo. - abunai |
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Nagisa
Moderator
Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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And I do just stick to one (same for singular & plural, sans-s), but I'm just saying that when I hear it from other people, one irks me and the other I'm quicker to forgive. |
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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I bow to your superior mastery of the difficult art of maintaining a double standard. 
- abunai |
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Nani?
 Posts: 632 |
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You are being too nit picky. Yes, I too wince occasionally at the poor use of language. When it's somebody who should know better occasionally I say something. Most of all I'm polite (but if they're too clueless I don't waste too much time either). I also remember that I'm somewhat "poetic" in the use of language. Descriptions like "shintoesque", "wonderfully apocolyptic", and "creepy jadedness" have creeped into my writing/conversation in relation to anime/manga and have made others heads spin. But, overall, there are more important things to get wrapped up in .
Of course, as Nagisa demonstrated, we all have double standards and we are perfectly within our rights to maintain such standards. Also, the keeping and feeding of peeves as pets is part of being human. All the best, Nani? |
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Nagisa
Moderator
Posts: 6128 Location: Atlanta-ish, Jawjuh |
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Hey, I'd rather have a double standard and practice-without-preaching, than continuously correct my friends' use of a language neither of us are really all that familiar with and make an ass of myself towards them.
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abunai
Old Regular
Posts: 5463 Location: 露命 |
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English? Sorry, couldn't resist.
- abunai |
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Keonyn
Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I don't mind really, it's cross culture and of course people are going to adapt the words over to an english style.
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