[Ads-l] plural of "emoji"

Mark Mandel markamandel at GMAIL.COM
Sat Jan 11 21:10:12 UTC 2020


Ha! :-)
(If that just whizzes past you, see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumanji:_The_Next_Level.)

MAM


On Sat, Jan 11, 2020, 3:46 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:

> > On Jan 11, 2020, at 1:22 AM, Mark Mandel <markamandel at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
> >
> > Did you mean *romaji*?
> >
> Chris was probably thinking of the board game version.
> (Romanji—“Transliteration, The Next Level”)
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 10, 2020, 4:50 PM Chris Waigl <chris at lascribe.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 11:18 AM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Right, and although “emoticon” is obviously a Greek neuter and thus ≥2
> of
> >>> them are emotica, “emoji" can only (in the Graeco-Roman world) be a
> Latin
> >>> or Italian plural, with the singular “emojus" or “emojo” respectively,
> as
> >>> per Geoff.
> >>>
> >>
> >> Yabbut, why would the Graeco-Roman world be the reference here?
> >>
> >> As a second-language Anglophone of European extraction, if I look at
> other
> >> plural words that end in ji, gi or chi and may be encountered in
> English, I
> >> find (other than those who do in fact go back to singulars in -o or
> -us):
> >>
> >>   - pierogi, which can be either its own singular or go back to a
> singular
> >>   pierog, with a pointer to Slavic languages
> >>   - romanji, which is mass noun (I think) going back to a plural, or can
> >>   be understand as a plural word
> >>   - Words that have legit i in the singular and may or may not prefer a
> >>   plural s: Basenji, kimchi (mass noun), litchi (may need a plural s,
> >> prefers
> >>   -ee spelling),
> >>
> >> Others really should have a plural -s (Yogis, Corgis) or not used in the
> >> plural (Hadji is a title) or need some thought about what the plural
> should
> >> be (shakuhachi, hibachi, other Japanese words in -i). For the shakuhachi
> >> flute, for example, hachi means eight.  I would be tempted to speak of a
> >> piece for "two shakuhachi", or whatever.
> >>
> >> Chris
> >> --
> >> Chris Waigl . chris.waigl at gmail.com . chris at lascribe.net
> >> http://eggcorns.lascribe.net . http://chryss.eu
>
>

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