[Ads-l] plural of "emoji"

[Laurence Horn]

> 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
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org