It's just scientific fact that they love being slaves to corporations unlike us, the proudly independent and individualistic Westerners smuglord

Source: I was on a Discord with a Japanese dude

  • Egon [they/them]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I thought so too, but then I sort of realised that it's pretty normal "a german, a frenchman and a swede walks into a bar" doesn't sound weird. Nor does "I met an american yesterday, they were very loud".
    "A japanese" still looks weird and signals weirdo energy, but it shouldn't. I wonder why?

    • AsLeftAsTheyCome [they/them, any]
      ·
      4 months ago

      That’s a fair point!

      I think it could be the -ese at the end. “A chinese” has the same weird vibe whereas “a korean” sounds better, so I don’t think it’s (necessarily) the history of bigotry against East Asians that makes it sound off.

      To me, the -ese ending kinda implies that the speaker is referencing a group. Words ending in -ese seem to lean more plural by default and using them to refer to singular individuals feels off, at least in my opinion. English is a very strange language though and I could very easily be wrong.

      • Egon [they/them]
        ·
        4 months ago

        Yeah I think it's the -ese too. I thought it was wrong to use for a person in singular, but apparently not for all nationalities. English is all vibes.

        • sir_this_is_a_wendys [he/him]
          ·
          4 months ago

          You're on to something. If I said 'i was talking to a Lebanonese', it sounds kinda off, but 'i was talking to an Iraqi, an Afghan, Palestinian' sounds fine.

          • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            You also can't pluralize -ese words without adding "people", while you can make the other ones plural with just an "s". Very inconvenient. English is weird.