Renai Jikai Ningyou Koisuru Sartain - Ch. 17 - Contagion

[MangaDex]

 

[lxmon_fax]

i fkn knew it with all those panels focused on him i knew he had to have loved haikaburi but didnt know it at the time also the reason the other guy didnt apoptise is it because he doesnt truly love twelve?

 

[Oeconomist]

One again: Vocatives need always to be offset by punctuation.

Right:
“Mate? Where are you?”
“Mate, where are you?”
“Where, mate, are you?”
“Where are you, mate?”
“Where are you? Mate?”

Wrong:
“Mate where are you?”
“Where mate are you?”
“Where are you mate?”

 

[Neushaartje]

One again: Vocatives need always to be offset by punctuation.

Right:
“Mate? Where are you?”
“Mate, where are you?”
“Where, mate, are you?”
“Where are you, mate?”
“Where are you? Mate?”

Wrong:
“Mate where are you?”
“Where mate are you?”
“Where are you mate?”

So you say, but that's neither how people speak nor write English, and I believe doing so or not creates a difference in intonation and makes it sound more direct.

Saying “It's fine mate.” sounds warm and friendly. “It's fine, mate.” sounds confrontational and sarcastic, which is how people speak and write.

 

[Oeconomist]

So you say, but that's neither how people speak nor write English, and I believe doing so or not creates a difference in intonation and makes it sound more direct.

Saying “It's fine mate.” sounds warm and friendly. “It's fine, mate.” sounds confrontational and sarcastic, which is how people speak and write.

Bullshit. The use of punctuation to offset vocatives is a basic rule of the English language. (It does not obtain in some other languages in which vocatives have a distinct declension.)

Your insistence on using a particular dialect in which people routinely use “innit” and “mate” (even though that dialect doesn't in the least match the setting of the story!) is one thing. This outright error is quite another.

 

[Neushaartje]

Bullshit. The use of punctuation to offset vocatives is a basic rule of the English language. (It does not obtain in some other languages in which vocatives have a distinct declension.)

And yet, many people don't write that way and there is a clear difference in meaning in speech between including the pause or not.
If I search "It's fine mate.", the overwhelming majority of citations on the internet found do not have the comma. If I were to read ”It's fine, mate.” with the comma, it would come across to me as sarcastic and I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one. I take great effort to match the tone of the Japanese as closely as I can in English. I'm not going to follow a præscriptive rule in orthography when the Japanese texts themselves don't follow it either. For instance the “rule” in Japanese is that quæstion marks and spaces don't exist, but in actual tests, such as these lines and forum posts, people use them all the time to indicate certain differences in intonation that are meaning. The “rule” in English is that “innit” is not a word and that “You okay?” is not a sentence which should be “Are you okay?”, yet I will use these translations all the time to translate Japanese sentences that similarly “bend” the grammar of Japanese to provide a more colloquial feel.

There's simply a difference in how “It's fine mate.” and “It's fine, mate.” comes across.

Your insistence on using a particular dialect in which people routinely use “innit” and “mate” (even though that dialect doesn't in the least match the setting of the story!) is one thing. This outright error is quite another.

It's not my choice to do so. Wakakusa as a character speaks in rather colloquial, Tokyo street Japanese. This is something Tomiyaki Kagisora chose to do to give the character an identity.

I understand your perspective however and I freely admit that I shared it until I learned Japanese myself. I used to criticize translations on minor grammatical inaccuracies until I realized, after learning Japanese that the Japanese itself is full of it, purposefully by the original writers to give characters an identity.

But in the end, this is how it is. You reference the setting rather than the original lines in criticizing my use of colloquial street English, but it's not as though the original Japanese lines, especially those of Wakakusa be written in pristine Japanese grammar either. I'm merely matching the original lines which contain all sorts of grammatical peculiarities, the kind of things Japanese people say on the street, but language teachers would frown upon. The Japanese æquivalent of “It's real bad.” while in textbook English “It's really bad.” is the only acceptable form.

Edit: on the topic of “mate” as a vocative. I think the issue is that in colloquial, spoken English. It's simply no longer a vocative to begin with but a grammaticalized sentence ender that derived from the vocative. English speakers can say when they're alone and bumped their toe “Bloody hell mate.” to themselves, they are not addressing anyone but “mate” behind it is simply a modal particle, not a vocative, which is why it's typically written without a comma in that way. “Bloody hell, mate.” can only be used when actually addressing someone. So in that sense you are correct that vocatives always require a comma, but “mate” has grammaticalized from a vocative to a modal particle in modern colloquial English, and can freely be used without addressing anyone.

 

[Oeconomist]

And yet, many people don't write that way and there is a clear difference in meaning in speech between including the pause or not.
If I search "It's fine mate.", the overwhelming majority of citations on the internet found do not have the comma.

First, one can find as many errors as one wants on the Internet. (For example, it is awash with “definately”.) Second, you are supposed to be translating dialogue, in which mispunctuation isn't even possible. If the story had a note or page from a book that were mispunctuated, then almost certainly the translation should also have mispunctuation. But vocalizations rendered as text are another matter. You could as well and as badly capitalize the wrong letters and insist that, because people miscapitalize on the 'Net, it was fine for you to do so in translating dialogue.

there is a clear difference in meaning in speech between including the pause or not.

The marks of punctuation began as signalling the lengths of pauses, but their purposes long ago became much wider in scope. (Consider parentheses; or, perhaps more to the point, the Oxford comma.)

It's not my choice to do so.

Oh, yes it is. Finding a corresponding English dialect (if possible) would have been a good choice; you didn't do that.

I used to criticize translations on minor grammatical inaccuracies until I realized, after learning Japanese that the Japanese itself is full of it, purposefully by the original writers to give characters an identity.

In earlier chapters, you mispunctuated every instance of any vocative. In this chapter, you did better. But you still dropped the ball with “mate”. Your choices aren't driven by careful consideration ex ante.

Edit: on the topic of “mate” as a vocative. I think the issue is that in colloquial, spoken English. It's simply no longer a vocative to begin with but a grammaticalized sentence ender that derived from the vocative.

No, what obtains when “mate” is used with no thought given to what person it might address is interjectional use, which can occur at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. Likewise for “man” and more recently for “dude”. But even when a nominal vocative takes-on a interjectional function, the word remains a nominal vocative and is punctuated accordingly.

 

[Neushaartje]

First, one can find as many errors as one wants on the Internet. (For example, it is awash with “definately”.)

In this case; it's the overwhelming majority that does so, not a minority. When an overwhelming majority uses a spelling, it has become the standard.

Second, you are supposed to be translating dialogue, in which mispunctuation isn't even possible.

It's very much possible. As I said, this kind of Japanese, as well as in forum posts contains a multitude of unusual punctuation styles that aren't allowed in formal Japanese in newspapers or Wikipedia.

But this is not a translation of any punctuation style; this is simply using “mate” as a modal particle rather than a vocative. I wouldn't be correctly translating the tone if I were to use it as a vocative. You can argue that it's incorrect, or informal grammar to use “mate” as a modal particle but the Japanese they use is very much full of forms many would call “incorrect” or at the very least not suitable for a newspaper article.

The marks of punctuation began as signalling the lengths of pauses, but their purposes long ago became much wider in scope. (Consider parentheses.)

And I would argue that this use of “mate” is not a vocative, but a modal particle grammatical from the former use, which is why most people do not put a comma here and I would also argue that to most people a comma or not changes the meaning from a modal particle to a vocative, and thus the tone of the sentence.

I would very much be giving a wrong impression to the people who read it by including a comma. I would make the lines sound more direct and confrontational than they are.

Oh, yes it is. Finding a corresponding English dialect (if possible) would have been a good choice; you didn't do that.

How is not corresponding?
Wakakusa speaks in a street version of the Japanese dialect spoken in the capital and most populous city of Japan. I have rendered that as a street version spoken in the capital and most populous city of England.

You make it seem that I arbitrarily changed the lines and reference only the original setting. Not the original Japanese lines from which I've translated it.

In earlier chapters, you mispunctuated every instance of any vocative. In this chapter, you did better. But you still dropped the ball with “mate”. Your choices aren't driven by careful consideration ex ante.

Again, they aren't following textbook Japanese grammar rules either.
You can insist all you want that in textbook English grammar; “mate” is not a modal particle, but the undeniable truth is that it has grammaticalized to a modal particle in colloquial English and that it's use as a vocative, and as a modal particle carry a different meaning.

“It's fine mate.” and “It's fine, mate.” simply mean two different things; this is how English is spoken by the common man. You can argue the former is not grammatical in the textbook sense, but it is used, and has a different meaning from the latter.

No, what obtains when “mate” is used with no thought given to what person it might address is interjectional use, which can occur at the beginning or in the middle of a sentence. Likewise for “man” and more recently for “dude”. But even when a nominal vocative takes-on a interjectional function, the word remains a nominal vocative and is punctuated accordingly.

No, it's a modal particle, not an interjection. An interjection by definition can stand on it's own, dislocated from any sentence. This use of “mate”, and indeed “man” always follows a sentence and lends it a different modality.

 

[Oeconomist]

When an overwhelming majority uses a spelling, it has become the standard.

No, fortunately it doesn't. If simple majoritarianism determined standard English, then a great deal would become impossible or nearly impossible to express. Determination of the standard is, in practice, heavily weighted in favor of people with particular competences.

It's very much possible.

No, it's not. Speech is a sequence of sounds. Punctuation are marks of writing that indicate or limit relationshios amongst words. Now-a-days, a full colon generally has no effect on how a sentence is sounded. People cannot hear the differences amongst dashes semi-colons, elipses, parentheses, or commas. A person who writes a list with an Oxford comma will sound it out just the same as would a person who does not use an Oxford comma.

And I would argue that this use of “mate” is not a vocative, but a modal particle grammatical from the former use, which is why most people do not put a comma here and I would also argue that to most people a comma or not changes the meaning from a modal particle to a vocative, and thus the tone of the sentence.

So now you've changed you theory from “mate” marking the end of a sentence to its having an unspecified modal effect. In any case, no, the comma is certainly not going to change how most people will interpret it, in-so-far as most Anglophones do not speak a dialect in which “mate” has a modal effect. For most Anglophones, “mate” is a simple, neutral vocative associate with Australians.

I have rendered that as a street version spoken in the capital and most populous city of England.

Nope. In discussion in an earlier chapter, you asserted that “lad” was a term used to indicate lower status. It's not in London. Many young men in London are happy to call themselves and to be called “lad”. So, whatever this dialect may be, it's not Londoner.

Again, they aren't following textbook Japanese grammar rules either.

Again, you're pretending that introducing mispunctuation of spoken English is somehow fidelity to non-standard Japanese. It's not. You just didn't understand a rule of English punctuation, managed a partial correction after your mistake was first noted, but have been trying to rationalize ex post the remaining continuation of the error.

the undeniable truth is that it has grammaticalized to a modal particle in colloquial English

Asserting this unspecified modality to be an “undeniable truth” is actively silly.

No, it's a modal particle, not an interjection

Humor me and anyone else following by actually specifying this supposed modality, presenting evidence for it, and perhaps explaining why you only just now began describing “mate” as having modal effect.

 

[Neushaartje]

No, fortunately it doesn't. If simple majoritarianism determined standard English, then a great deal would become impossible or nearly impossible to express. Determination of the standard is, in practice, heavily weighted in favor of people with particular competences.

And that would of course be you. Everyone else is wrong and you are right.
Regardless, I merely match the Japanese which, again, is not textbook Japanese either.

No, it's not. Speech is a sequence of sounds. Punctuation are marks of writing that indicate or limit relationshios amongst words. Now-a-days, a full colon generally has no effect on how a sentence is sounded. People cannot hear the differences amongst dashes semi-colons, elipses, parentheses, or commas. A person who writes a list with an Oxford comma will sound it out just the same as would a person who does not use an Oxford comma.

And you will find that in writing people make this distinction. As I said, the majority of instances of “It's fine mate.” do not include the comma.
You disagree that they do, apparently, but it turns out people do not write the English language as you want them to.

So now you've changed you theory from “mate” marking the end of a sentence to its having an unspecified modal effect. In any case, no, the comma is certainly not going to change how most people will interpret it, in-so-far as most Anglophones do not speak a dialect in which “mate” has a modal effect. For most Anglophones, “mate” is a simple, neutral vocative associate with Australians.

I strongly disagree with that. You seem to be an odd one here as evidenced by the fact that the majority of written texts do not include the comma, which they do with “It's fine, John.”.
Most people who will come across “It's fine, mate.” will perceive it as far more confrontational and aggressive than “It's fine mate.” I endeavor to as closely as possible capture the tone of the original Japanese lines.

Nope. In discussion in an earlier chapter, you asserted that “lad” was a term used to indicate lower status. It's not in London. Many young men in London are happy to call themselves and to be called “lad”. So, whatever this dialect may be, it's not Londoner.

Try calling your boss or your teacher “lad” and see how that goes in London.
It is very much a form of address used by those of higher status to those of lower status, that those of lower status are fine with being referred to as such is common in m
any cultures, including in Japanese culture.

Humor me and anyone else following by actually specifying this supposed modality, presenting evidence for it, and perhaps explaining why you only just now began describing “mate” as having modal effect.

The evidence I gave is that the majority of citations of it's use do not include the comma. Apparently you do not consider how the majority uses something as evidence for how the majority perceives it.

 

[Oeconomist]

And that would of course be you.

Nope. I've had a discernible but only trivial effect on the standard.

It is very much a form of address used by those of higher status to those of lower status, that those of lower status are fine with being referred to as such is common in m
any cultures, including in Japanese culture.

In Londoner dialect, “lad” captures a sense of youthful masculinity. Because of this actual association, products such as the Yorkie (a candy bar) are marketed as “for lads”, something that would not work nor even be tried if “lad” carried with it any sense of inferiority. Similarly, no product is marketed to a final customer as “for subordinates”, “for servants”, “for serfs”, or “for slaves”. (The strong association with masculinity makes your use of it for feminized persons especially absurd if you're trying for Londoner dialect).

And you will find that in writing people make this distinction.

Now let's get to the principal point: Even though you have been directly and explicitly asked, you do not specify this supposed modality. You're grabbing at the frequency of a mere punctuation error as evidence for a modality, and so cannot say what that modality were.

People make punctuation errors in writing; they cannot make punctuation errors in speech, in the same sense as they cannot miscapitalize or make spelling errors or form letters badly. Incorporating a punctuation error into the transcription of dialogue is simply a mistake, and inventing a modality rather than acknowledging the error isn't helpful to you.

 

[AmaSuna]

The comment section is suddenly a fight between 2 smart kids in english class

Anyway, his eyes is filled with life!??
I'm still confused as in what the hell is his goal