Why do we say "UTAU (plural)?"

[luiysia]

OK, before you tell me it's for accuracy, I know that. I know japanese doesn't pluralize with the "s" so you're trying to maintain that. but this is a really, really clunky and often misused solution, e.g., using it when you want a possessive.

so, why do you, personally, use it? where did you pick it up? does anyone know where it originated from?

I know that I haven't been in this community long and I'm definitely not well-known but I think it'd be a lot better to pluralize with an "s" (or even an "ii" or "en") than to always have to type out "UTAU (plural)" or maybe even "UTAU (possessive)," or, god forbid, "UTAU (plural possessive)."

thanks for reading.

edit: wow. I didn't realize there was an autocorrect. dang, y'all are serious about this.

 

[Kiyoteru]

Forum users been fighting with the admin about this automatic correction for a long time and nothing has really changed.

 

[stormylullaby]

Sooo just so you know, UTAU s (without the space) has a word filter. Everyone is typing UTAU s but the word filter changes it to UTAU (plural). This is because of the admin.

 

[luiysia]

Sooo just so you know, UTAU s (without the space) has a word filter. Everyone is typing UTAU s but the word filter changes it to UTAU (plural). This is because of the admin.

wow, yeah. I just noticed rereading my post thinking I really haven't been getting enough sleep recently.

I was thinking this was one of the weirdest and most pointless linguistic phenomena I'd ever seen. turns out it's just stubborn admins.

did they give a reasoning?

also, if they won't get rid of it, they should make it more extensive to include "UTAU (possessive)" and "UTAU (plural possessive)," like i said. that would be really funny

 

[stormylullaby]

He believes that UTAU is both singular & plural, therefore UTAU with an s is redundant.

 

[luiysia]

He believes that UTAU is both singular & plural, therefore UTAU with an s is redundant.

if it truly is both then why add the (plural)? plenty of nouns are like that, but we don't go around whispering "plural" after talking about herds of deer or flocks of sheep. [[also why be so controlling and pedantic lol]]

sorry if I'm not really bringing up anything new. I'm just curious about how this came about.

 

[Kiyoteru]

There's also corrections on animes, mangas, and ninjas (but ironically, not hentais)

 

[stormylullaby]

To be fair, the original word filter was just changing it to "UTAU" but it brought a whole host of complaints so he added the (plural) to make it more apparent what people are talking about since most people do distinguish UTAU & UTAU s.

I'ma move this to Chitchat

 

[luiysia]

There's also corrections on animus, mangos, and narutos (but ironically, not hentais)

LOLLLLL that's hilarious honestly

when I become president I'm going to have little chips implanted in people's vocal cords at birth. it will be linked with a chip in their brain that detects when they are about to make a grammatical error, and every time this happens it will momentarily choke off their air supply and blare in hatsune miku's voice the correct phrasing. I will be incredibly popular

I'ma move this to Chitchat

yeah, now that I think about it this probably belongs there :P thanks

 

[Agatechlo]

When a loanword is brought into a language, that language's grammar is NOT adopted with it. Otherwise, we should demand that Japanese say "pikuchasu" for "pictures", "fokusu" for "forks", etc. Additionally, English grammar often does not supply surrounding "support" words to clarify the singular or plural form of a noun. If I say "I have many UTAU", it's clear that UTAU in this case is being used as plural. But it's not always easy to include a quantifier like "many", which then leads to confusion. In Japanese, I believe such a quantifier (takusan?) is required.

 

[luiysia]

When a loanword is brought into a language, that language's grammar is NOT adopted with it. Otherwise, we should demand that Japanese say "pikuchasu" for "pictures", "fokusu" for "forks", etc. Additionally, English grammar often does not supply surrounding "support" words to clarify the singular or plural form of a noun. If I say "I have many UTAU", it's clear that UTAU in this case is being used as plural. But it's not always easy to include a quantifier like "many", which then leads to confusion. In Japanese, I believe such a quantifier (takusan?) is required.

OK, but forcing the "UTAU (plural)" on unsuspecting people is really infinitely worse. it causes a lot of error:

• "Is it ok to change an UTAU (plural) appearance for appends ?"
• "Could Somebody Help Fix My UTAU (plural) Samples?"
• "Please review my UTAU (plural) design and listen too the demo ? "
  
• "UTAU (plural) art"

these are all from the first page of my google results for "utau (plural)," and judging by the threads themselves they all meant to use possessives or plural possessives. if this confusion is such a huge problem then why not just let people do what they want?

the fact is that forcing this is a horrible and weirdly controlling solution that makes everyone look like fools who are so **** about japanese grammar that they will sacrifice english grammar. it reminds me of the "don't end a sentence with a preposition rule" that people love to enforce but is just uselessly taken from latin (so it's even worse since there's really even less reasoning in this case lol):

"Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."


[[edited because I realized I misread your post]]

 

[Agatechlo]

OK, but forcing the "UTAU (plural)" on unsuspecting people is really infinitely worse. it causes a lot of error:

• "Is it ok to change an UTAU (plural) appearance for appends ?"
• "Could Somebody Help Fix My UTAU (plural) Samples?"
• "Please review my UTAU (plural) design and listen too the demo ? "
  
• "UTAU (plural) art"

these are all from the first page of my google results for "utau (plural)," and judging by the threads themselves they all meant to use possessives or plural possessives. if this confusion is such a huge problem then why not just let people do what they want?

the fact is that forcing this is a horrible and weirdly controlling solution that makes everyone look like fools who are so **** about japanese grammar that they will sacrifice english grammar.{/QUOTE]

I absolutely agree!

Unfortunately I'll have to leave it at that, as I can't see where else to take this thread other than the person responsible for this situation, & I don't believe in getting into such discussions in public. Let's just hope he has a change of & lets us say "UTAU"s w/o having to think 0f creative ways of getting around the word filter.