3 ms·

It is perfectly logically consistent. Picture of Shibuya Station's glowing sign. Caption: "the famous Tokyo shopping district known worldwide as Shibuya will b

by yorwba 3y ago

It is perfectly logically consistent. Picture of Shibuya Station's glowing sign. Caption: "the famous Tokyo shopping district known worldwide as Shibuya will be changed in its official presentation from Sibuya" Currently, Shibuya is officially supposed to be romanized as Sibuya, but in common usage including signage it is written Shibuya. "Amid concern the divide between official rules and common usage is causing confusion, a subcommittee of the Council for Cultural Affairs deemed it necessary to consider the revision to improve communication." Since they want to adapt the law to match what everyone is already doing anyways, no change is to be expected.

bitwize 3y ago
It's logically consistent, but clunky to read and prone to misunderstanding. I had to read over it a couple of times to understand, are they changing from Sibuya to Shibuya or the other way around? As an example of text written by native English speakers that has these properties of being entirely logically consistent but clunky and difficult to understand, see the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
laborcontract 3y ago
It may technically be logically consistent, but nobody writes this way: “meaning, for example, the official spelling of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi will replace Aiti.” This reads that the official spelling is currently Aichi. The Shibuya sentence is very awkward as well.
- adastra22 3y ago
  “Aichi will replace Aiti” seems pretty clear to me.
  - laborcontract 3y ago
    The article talks about how "y" is replacing "x" as the official romanization in Japan. "The official spelling of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi" indicates that "Aichi" is the official spelling. This means to me that "Aichi" is "y" and, by extension, that "Aiti" is "x". "Aichi will replace Aiti" doesn't add any clarity if it's breaking that logic. There's a reason why others also find this article hard to parse.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Yes, Y replacing X reading is correct. It's hard to parse because the Japanese system is itself a mess. The (former) official romanization rules say the name of this prefecture should be written Aiti but the official practice is to write it as Aichi because that's easier to teach to non-Japanese. Consider that the romanization rules were (iirc) mostly originating from the ministry of education, but that ministries responsible for trade and tourism would naturally prefer to use whatever is easiest for foreign partners to deal with, and could lobby for exceptions since they're revenue centers rather than cost centers. Japan has both a professional bureaucracy under a parliamentary system and de facto one party rule, so (imho) there's much greater potential for policy balkanization of this sort.
- anigbrowl 3y ago
  People absolutely do write this way. My guess is that the article writer is from the UK rather than the US. British English often involves longer and more complex clauses and something not unlike operator overloading.
gpvos 3y ago
The use of "from" instead of "to" is confusing. I had to read those lines again after figuring out halfway the article what the actual direction was.

by yorwba 3y ago

bitwize 3y ago

It's logically consistent, but clunky to read and prone to misunderstanding. I had to read over it a couple of times to understand, are they changing from Sibuya to Shibuya or the other way around? As an example of text written by native English speakers that has these properties of being entirely logically consistent but clunky and difficult to understand, see the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

laborcontract 3y ago

It may technically be logically consistent, but nobody writes this way: “meaning, for example, the official spelling of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi will replace Aiti.” This reads that the official spelling is currently Aichi. The Shibuya sentence is very awkward as well.

adastra22 3y ago
“Aichi will replace Aiti” seems pretty clear to me.
- laborcontract 3y ago
  The article talks about how "y" is replacing "x" as the official romanization in Japan. "The official spelling of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi" indicates that "Aichi" is the official spelling. This means to me that "Aichi" is "y" and, by extension, that "Aiti" is "x". "Aichi will replace Aiti" doesn't add any clarity if it's breaking that logic. There's a reason why others also find this article hard to parse.
  - anigbrowl 3y ago
    Yes, Y replacing X reading is correct. It's hard to parse because the Japanese system is itself a mess. The (former) official romanization rules say the name of this prefecture should be written Aiti but the official practice is to write it as Aichi because that's easier to teach to non-Japanese. Consider that the romanization rules were (iirc) mostly originating from the ministry of education, but that ministries responsible for trade and tourism would naturally prefer to use whatever is easiest for foreign partners to deal with, and could lobby for exceptions since they're revenue centers rather than cost centers. Japan has both a professional bureaucracy under a parliamentary system and de facto one party rule, so (imho) there's much greater potential for policy balkanization of this sort.
anigbrowl 3y ago
People absolutely do write this way. My guess is that the article writer is from the UK rather than the US. British English often involves longer and more complex clauses and something not unlike operator overloading.

gpvos 3y ago

The use of "from" instead of "to" is confusing. I had to read those lines again after figuring out halfway the article what the actual direction was.