3 ms·

I'm not as bothered by it as you seem to think; I was more just pointing out that the trend of naming everything after random Japanese words is a bit stale — es

I'm not as bothered by it as you seem to think; I was more just pointing out that the trend of naming everything after random Japanese words is a bit stale — especially if there's no relation to Japan and you don't speak Japanese. > Or do you mean that words like Twitter and Yahoo should be phased out and everything should just be a single letter like X? Yes. Apart from my children, who will be named things like X Æ A-Xii.

culi 2y ago
Pinterest names their design system "Gestalt" but they're not a German company. GitLab names theirs "Pajamas" but they're not primarily Urdu speaking.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  Your second example is a bit disingenuous since the word ‘pyjamas’ is a perfectly normal English word, regardless of its etymology. As for the first: there isn’t a silly trend of naming everything after randomly-chosen German words, so at least it’s fairly original.
  - culi 2y ago
    I picked the second example exactly to elicit a response such as yours. It's ultimately a word from a foreign language. At some point it got used by English-speakers and then it spread and got used more and more. Lots of foreign words get used. Some catch on and some don't. That's just how language evolves. Pajamas is just an example of a foreign word in a late stage of this evolution
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      In that case I don't see your point. We're talking about words that are entirely foreign — not loanwords.
  - pdabbadabba 2y ago
    'Gestalt,' like 'pajamas,' is also now an English-language word. (Though, admittedly, I think people use it with some level of awareness that it is borrowed from German. So it's different from 'pajamas' in that respect.) I would have thought that the explanation for the phenomenon you highlight is obvious: there is a strong current of Japanophilia in U.S. culture generally, and especially among the tech-minded. So, while people borrow words from languages around the globe, Japanese is especially well represented. I'm surprised people seem reluctant to acknowledge this. Edit: German is another interesting example. Though perhaps among different people and different reasons, English speakers (at least Americans) do also seem to have a special fondness for German words. Gestalt, zeitgeist, schadenfreude, ersatz, etc. For me, these are evocative of the golden age of German-language science and philosophy running roughly from Kant through Jung. For product names, though, German words may tend to be a bit too long and challenging to pronounce for an Anglophone audience. Perhaps this highlights another reason for the popularity of Japanese for this purpose: in addition to providing a pool of 'cool' sounding words without preexisting connotations for English speakers, Japanese seems to have an abundance of short words that an English speaker may find easily pronounceable. (Not to say that the words are necessarily pronounces correctly from the perspective of a Japanese speaker.)
tokioyoyo 2y ago
That’s basically how words are borrowed from one language and brought into another.
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  I don’t think it is. It’s not random. Words are borrowed because they’re useful and fill in some gap or serve some new purpose.
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Or because they differentiate you from others. English is full of that; there's "cow" for the commoners (from Germanic) vs "beef" for the rich (from French). Or thee/thous for commoners vs you (from French 'vous') for the rich. I suppose the new purpose in those cases were to differentiate from the lower classes.

culi 2y ago

Pinterest names their design system "Gestalt" but they're not a German company. GitLab names theirs "Pajamas" but they're not primarily Urdu speaking.

xanderlewis 2y ago
Your second example is a bit disingenuous since the word ‘pyjamas’ is a perfectly normal English word, regardless of its etymology. As for the first: there isn’t a silly trend of naming everything after randomly-chosen German words, so at least it’s fairly original.
- culi 2y ago
  I picked the second example exactly to elicit a response such as yours. It's ultimately a word from a foreign language. At some point it got used by English-speakers and then it spread and got used more and more. Lots of foreign words get used. Some catch on and some don't. That's just how language evolves. Pajamas is just an example of a foreign word in a late stage of this evolution
  - xanderlewis 2y ago
    In that case I don't see your point. We're talking about words that are entirely foreign — not loanwords.
- pdabbadabba 2y ago
  'Gestalt,' like 'pajamas,' is also now an English-language word. (Though, admittedly, I think people use it with some level of awareness that it is borrowed from German. So it's different from 'pajamas' in that respect.) I would have thought that the explanation for the phenomenon you highlight is obvious: there is a strong current of Japanophilia in U.S. culture generally, and especially among the tech-minded. So, while people borrow words from languages around the globe, Japanese is especially well represented. I'm surprised people seem reluctant to acknowledge this. Edit: German is another interesting example. Though perhaps among different people and different reasons, English speakers (at least Americans) do also seem to have a special fondness for German words. Gestalt, zeitgeist, schadenfreude, ersatz, etc. For me, these are evocative of the golden age of German-language science and philosophy running roughly from Kant through Jung. For product names, though, German words may tend to be a bit too long and challenging to pronounce for an Anglophone audience. Perhaps this highlights another reason for the popularity of Japanese for this purpose: in addition to providing a pool of 'cool' sounding words without preexisting connotations for English speakers, Japanese seems to have an abundance of short words that an English speaker may find easily pronounceable. (Not to say that the words are necessarily pronounces correctly from the perspective of a Japanese speaker.)

tokioyoyo 2y ago

That’s basically how words are borrowed from one language and brought into another.

xanderlewis 2y ago
I don’t think it is. It’s not random. Words are borrowed because they’re useful and fill in some gap or serve some new purpose.
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Or because they differentiate you from others. English is full of that; there's "cow" for the commoners (from Germanic) vs "beef" for the rich (from French). Or thee/thous for commoners vs you (from French 'vous') for the rich. I suppose the new purpose in those cases were to differentiate from the lower classes.