[Ads-l] plural of "emoji"

[Chris Waigl]

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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