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

  • 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.