[Ads-l] plural of "emoji"

[Mark Mandel]

Did you mean *romaji*?

MAM

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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