Wow. In my experience, when asked, most people I know are either extremely and unbendingly pro-life or extremely pro-choice. The people I know who would consider the context are few and far between.
The usage of Chinese characters in Japanese is quite different from their usage in Chinese. Most strikingly is the fact that almost all of them in Japanese have multiple readings. The character for "up" has the readings "ue", "uwa", "kami", "agaru", "ageru", "noboru", "noboseru", "nobosu", "zyou", "syou"...and Kanji in Japanese often have even more readings when used in names. And then there are the irregular readings (like "heta")...
So having a smaller number of Kanji doesn't make things any easier.
I checked out the Slashdot.jp article, and got absolutely nothing out of it.
Why would those who read a roman alphabet be directed to a site in Japanese for more information?
Because readers who are interested in what's going on with the writing system of a foreign language are highly likely to be speakers/readers of that language?
One reason is the lack of sounds in Japanese resulting in huge numbers of homophones. Both Katakana and Hiragana encode each of the homophones in a fixed way unlike in English (e.g. in English "One" vs "Won"). The use of Kanji reduces the amount of ambiguity in the written language. The Chinese characters were used first anyway.
Disclaimer: I don't speak Japanese, yet.
Which, unfortunately, doesn't helo one whit once you put away your books and open your mouth. And last I heard, most Japanese learn to speak before they learn to read.
It must have been terrible for us all when we couldn't distinguish "one" from "won" before we learned to read!
To be pedantic, Hiragana and Katakana glyphs are the equivalent of English syllables.
To be extra pedantic, they're not necessarily syllables, but morae.
For example, "o" is a one-mora syllable on it's own, whereas "oo" is also one syllable, but containing two morae (two beats to one syllable). "Oto" would then be both two morae and two syllables.
Also, depending on context, the pronunciation of a word might be the same, but the spelling could be different. For example, the word "kami" can mean "God" or "paper". Both sound the same, but each has its own kanji character. So as for your statement that spelling is unrelated to pronunciation is somewhat incorrect.
Uh...didn't you just actually show how pronunciation is unrelated to spelling?
There are numerous kanji that never appear in isolation in Japanese, and thus cannot be considered actual "words".
Also, when the kanji is a verb or verbal adjective, it requires hiragana tagged on at the end to give you the "conjugation" of the word, so the kanji by itself again cannot be considered a complete word.
I don't believe for a second that Zappa would be into FOSS. Read up on how he (and now the Zappa Family Trust) refused to release Captain Beefheart's original Bat Chain Puller, over hair-splitting legal technicalities and a bit of good old-fashioned spite. Thirty-two years now, and still the only way to get it is as a bootleg.
So you'd claim that manufactured items aren't really "manufactured" these days, because they're made by machines and not by hand?
I think there are few cases in which such uses actually dilutes the language. The misuse of the word "literally" is amongst the worst, IMO. But context is everything. Words have no meaning outside of their context. And in this case, nothing's been diluted. If anything, the language has been enriched. Or can you think of an actual, concrete case where this use of the word can cause confusion (versus the "literally" example)?
Personally I'd buy an ebook reader if it was 8.5x11 inches at readable DPI and did PDFs, because that seems a nearly world standard electronic data sheet format.
Um...except for the fact that the rest of the world uses A4 as a standard. The rest of the world doesn't even use inches (that's over 6 billion humans, by the way).
Slashdot Mirror
No, it's a lot simpler than that. One guy, with a bunch of assertions, managed to get enough members of Congress alarmed.
Actually, a lot of people (including cartoonists) testified at the hearings.
Although, with the mistaken hairsplitting removed, the original point's still valid:
I don't know any native speaker who doesn't know how to use the word "to", "too", or "two".
Spelling, however, is another issue.
Spelling, however, is another issue.
I wish a bittorrent network was anything like a speakeasy.
Filesharing may be free as in beer, but it does not deliver you free beer.
I've never been to one, but didn't you have to pay for the beer in a speakeasy?
Yeah, the recording/movie industry's accounting practices have been on /. a lot lately.
This is how they avoid paying the awarded damages to the artists they're supposedly fighting for---they write the $16,000,000 off as expenses!
(it even has features that Android doesn't have - like copying files over bluetooth)
I can (and do) copy files over bluetooth with my HTC Desire. Is this not common on other Android phones?
Why "literally" don't care?
Could you figuratively not care?
I used to work for a hotel in the Rockies that had a lot of Japanese guests. They got a two-page printout of the news every morning.
Wow. In my experience, when asked, most people I know are either extremely and unbendingly pro-life or extremely pro-choice. The people I know who would consider the context are few and far between.
When I hear "retina display" I think what you are talking about is a system that projects an image into my retina.
Or from your retina! That's the feature I've been waiting for---laser eyes!!!
So having a smaller number of Kanji doesn't make things any easier.
What is the one meaning of ""?
It's a koan, and the answer will be different for each of us.
I checked out the Slashdot.jp article, and got absolutely nothing out of it.
Why would those who read a roman alphabet be directed to a site in Japanese for more information?
Because readers who are interested in what's going on with the writing system of a foreign language are highly likely to be speakers/readers of that language?
Kanji = words taken into Japanese from Chinese
Except for the kanji that are natively Japanese (like "hatake", which was borrowed back into Chinese).
(Does anyone know how to input CJK characters on Slashdot? Slashdot ate my kanji!)
Which is why so many manga have kana above the kanji.
No, it just means that you read children's manga.
One reason is the lack of sounds in Japanese resulting in huge numbers of homophones. Both Katakana and Hiragana encode each of the homophones in a fixed way unlike in English (e.g. in English "One" vs "Won"). The use of Kanji reduces the amount of ambiguity in the written language. The Chinese characters were used first anyway.
Disclaimer: I don't speak Japanese, yet.
Which, unfortunately, doesn't helo one whit once you put away your books and open your mouth. And last I heard, most Japanese learn to speak before they learn to read.
It must have been terrible for us all when we couldn't distinguish "one" from "won" before we learned to read!
To be pedantic, Hiragana and Katakana glyphs are the equivalent of English syllables.
To be extra pedantic, they're not necessarily syllables, but morae.
For example, "o" is a one-mora syllable on it's own, whereas "oo" is also one syllable, but containing two morae (two beats to one syllable). "Oto" would then be both two morae and two syllables.
Also, depending on context, the pronunciation of a word might be the same, but the spelling could be different. For example, the word "kami" can mean "God" or "paper". Both sound the same, but each has its own kanji character. So as for your statement that spelling is unrelated to pronunciation is somewhat incorrect.
Uh...didn't you just actually show how pronunciation is unrelated to spelling?
There are numerous kanji that never appear in isolation in Japanese, and thus cannot be considered actual "words".
Also, when the kanji is a verb or verbal adjective, it requires hiragana tagged on at the end to give you the "conjugation" of the word, so the kanji by itself again cannot be considered a complete word.
I don't believe for a second that Zappa would be into FOSS. Read up on how he (and now the Zappa Family Trust) refused to release Captain Beefheart's original Bat Chain Puller, over hair-splitting legal technicalities and a bit of good old-fashioned spite. Thirty-two years now, and still the only way to get it is as a bootleg.
I think there are few cases in which such uses actually dilutes the language. The misuse of the word "literally" is amongst the worst, IMO. But context is everything. Words have no meaning outside of their context. And in this case, nothing's been diluted. If anything, the language has been enriched. Or can you think of an actual, concrete case where this use of the word can cause confusion (versus the "literally" example)?
It's not just a scaling issue. The dimensions are different. And, yes, it _is_ noticeable, and irritating.
This use of the word "agnostic" has become common, and what on earth is wrong with that? It all comes down to context.
Personally I'd buy an ebook reader if it was 8.5x11 inches at readable DPI and did PDFs, because that seems a nearly world standard electronic data sheet format.
Um...except for the fact that the rest of the world uses A4 as a standard. The rest of the world doesn't even use inches (that's over 6 billion humans, by the way).
I don't get this. I'm using version 5.0.342.9 on Ubuntu Lucid, and the http:/// is right up there (in light grey).