• TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Languages where English respects the source grammar

    You’re saying “English” as if it’s a singular entity, which is obviously absurd.

    I don’t know how you didn’t understand, but I showed how two Chinese loanwords used in English – bok choy and ketchup – respectively do and do not generally have their original grammar respected. I likewise used the plural of “octopus” (incidentally with a ‘c’ instead of a ‘k’ like it “should” have) to show that a word of Greek origin has varying degrees of respect for its roots (but that it’s generally disrespected by most people).

    The point being that it’s a mixed bag. You can cherrypick European and non-European words that do and do not have their original pluralization generally respected by modern English speakers, just like you’ve done here, to make whatever kind of argument you want. And why are you thowing proper nouns in here? Yeah, Americans kept the name “Los Angeles”. Okay? Is that why it’s called “New York City” and not “Nieuw Amsterdam” right now? Is that why Americans pronounce the name of the country on their southern border as “Meksiko?”

    It’s very clear you’re making this argument based on vibes, because absolutism clearly doesn’t work, and any attempt to make this argument about Eurocentrism via actual statistical means requires extensive knowledge that you plainly don’t have when you’re making basic-ass oversights like this.

    • 🍉 DrRedOctopus 🐙🍉@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      it’s not an academic essay, I wrote that a couple minutes after realising that.

      but I don’t think you disproved anything with any of your examples, it just seemed like you didn’t enjoy the decolonising language used.