[thechat] sharks (was: rationality)

[Ben Dyer]

At 01:31 PM 1/6/2003, you wrote:
>On 6 Jan 2003 at 12:59, Ben Dyer posted a message which said:
>
> > At 12:39 PM 1/6/2003, you wrote:
> > >You've obviously never experienced a kamikazi deer attack
> > I would like to take this time to say that the word you're actually
> > after is "kamikaze".  "Kaze" is Japanese for wind (Kamikaze meaning
> > "Divine Wind" or "Godly Wind").  "Kazi" means fire, I think.
>
>Thanks. I appreciate pedantry.
>
>I wasn't sure of the spelling, but Google gives 9680 hits on Kamikazi,
>so apparently I'm not the only dolt in the crowd.  (340K on your
>spelling.)
>
>The spelling of words in a language other than the original is always a
>bit problematic. Most of us spelt it Peking for decades, and now the
>city is Beijing. Do you are suppose all the cookbooks changing the
>recipe name from Peking Duck to Beijing Duck?

Well, Chinese is a bit more problematic than Japanese because of the tonal
system that Chinese uses (the same syllable can mean five different things
depending on how the stress is applied).  So, it's harder to transliterate
into English correctly (as I understand it).  Additionally, I think that
the difference between "Beijing" and "Peking" is because of a change in the
way Chinese was transliterated.  Uh...here:

<http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/chinalan.htm>

Part of the problem with the word "Kamikaze" is how we pronounce it in
English.  The correct pronounciation is closer to: Kah-mee-kah-zay, but we
usually pronounce it kah-muh-kah-zee.

--Ben