Attempt to win an award

Hi, Mr Jack. If it were a technical or scientific term, I would argue for the correct Latin usage; but, "fora" just comes off as pretentious in colloquial usage.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

"Opossum" is not derived from Latin, but from Algonquian, and so, the proper plural is "opossums."And, the proper plural for "specimen" is "specimina."The proper plural of "species" is "speciei."The proper plural of "Triceratops" is "Triceratopes."The proper singular of "thrips" is "thrips."Why did we drop the final "-a" from the Latin word "vipera?"And, why do we pronounce the letter "i" in Latin words like "aye," when the actual pronunciation is like "ee?" Venom is produced in a gland, injected actively into a target, and acts by attacking tissues; while poison is sequestered in tissues, passively ingested by the target, and acts by causing illness or impalatability. There are no poisonous spiders or poisonous snakes: there are, however, many venomous spiders and venomous snakes.The letter "j" in Chinese is pronounced like the letter "j" in English, not like in the French word "deja vu." So, the capitol is "Bei-jing," not "Bei-zhing." This one drives me particularly crazy because there is hardly precedent for the idiot colloquial pronunciation by English speakers of the Chinese capitol city.Do you still think you can win the award, Kaichos Man?

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Parasomnium. Actually, the city's name never was "Peking": this was just the result of a very bad romanization system. The Mandarin Chinese "b" is slightly aspirated, so it sounds a little like an English "p" (the more aspirated "p" sound of Mandarin was represented with a "p" followed by an apostrophe).And, the "j" sound from "Beijing" was, for some unknown reason, romanized as a "k." I think it derives from the Chinese Postal Map Romanization system, which is notoriously unsystematic and unintuitive. It was a modification of the old Wade-Giles system that was apparently based on the fundamental premise of switching random letters around for no particular reason.But, what really bugs me about it is that English speakers read Chinese romanization (pinyin) as if it were English, except when they hit the letter "j" (which is one time when the English pronunciation actually approximates the correct pronunciation), they flip to French mode.It's the one letter they would have said right if they had used their normal heuristic system! And they have to switch heuristics when they get to it! It's completely bizarre!

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Mr Jack. Agreed. I was just extrapolating the principle to show how silly it is...I happen to like Latin plurals, but I usually avoid them in colloquial conversations ("genera" confuses the crap out of people, but I usually say it, then explain it, anyway).

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, AiG. Actually, it's not just dialects: there are many languages that are collectively referred to as "Chinese." My comments all refer to Mandarin, which is the most commonly spoken "Chinese" and the language indigenous to the Beijing region.----- With all your clever wordplay, I keep forgetting that English isn't your first language.That post was sarcastic: I felt this thread needed something over the top.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Dronester. This isn't as bad as people think. There is actually an "L" in Mandarin, and it's pretty much the same as our "L." But, they don't use the letter "L" as a liquid consonent, like we do in English (that means, at the end of a syllable).The closest thing they have in Mandarin is an ending "r" sound which is pronounced a pretty much like the "r" at the end of your screen name.----- It's really neither. In English, the letter's "ow" make a sound like a short "a" followed by a long "o." In Chinese (and lots of other languages), the equivalent is spelled "ao" and pronounced like "ah" followed by "o."If you want to approximate it, say "NEE how."

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.