Wikipedia:Peer review/Tsunami/archive1

Tsunami

This has gotten a lot of tlc recently; should be fac'able soon. Thoughts? There are probably many related articles it should be x-referenced with, and perhaps more attention should be given to other related terms of non-english origin. +sj + 17:15, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure exactly what you are asking for. I can't see much room for wikification, and (and as someone who studied tsunamis during oceanography modules at university) I have tried to keep the science on track as far as possible. Do you have more specific concerns? Dan100 21:33, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)

Since you're one of the people working on the article, you are not the audience I am hoping to attract by listing it for peer review :-) PR is a good way to get feedback about good articles from people who don't otherwise visit them, but have a strong sense of style. +sj + 13:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As a lifelong student of Japanese language, I have a pet peeve about the word tsunami in English. The plural of tsunami is tsunami, not tsunamis. From a style perspective all plurals should follow Japanese convention. Revmachine21 05:00, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The plural in English is "tsunamis". Just like the plural in French of cameraman is cameramans. The borrowing language need not respect the plural-formation rules of the source language. -- Curps 05:24, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think we should make it tsunami in this case. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:33, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The word has entered English and takes English plural. From dictionary.com: n. pl. tsu·na·mis. It's even got an adjective, tsunamic, which sure isn't Japanese. RickK 05:38, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

If you can cite a good example of this "tsunami" as plural, I might change my mind. But you'll note that the link header that was changed to "-nami" is actually titled "-namis." I find no use of "tsunami" as plural in the usual news sources in English. It's an oddity of transliteration similar to, say, "perogies". . . Zosodada 05:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

English borrows words indiscriminately from many other languages, and plurals are always formed according to English rules — the only historical exception is Latin (and perhaps Ancient Greek) because Latin was a compulsory subject in schools until a few decades ago. Otherwise, English speakers would have to memorize hundreds of exotic plurals on a case-by-case basis for every single word with a foreign etymology. Should the English plural of "sheik" be "shuyukh" (sp?) because that is the plural in Arabic? -- Curps 05:53, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

See List of English words of Japanese origin... the English plural of "futon" is "futons", the English plural of "tycoon" is "tycoons". -- Curps 06:00, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Revmachine cited an "edit fast" site which suggests looking in the dictionary to solve these dilemmas. My English dictionary says "tsunamis" (pl). Curps is correct. Making "Tsunami" plural here would be instituting a new convention, but I don't think that is the intent of Wikipedia. Perhaps, however, it should be noted at the Wiktionary. Zosodada 06:09, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Hello. I would consider myself to mainly be a bystander in the Tsunami discussion. The only comment I have is that "tsunami" and "tsunamis" are both acceptable plural forms in the English language. Neither one is wrong from an English standpoint. And trust me about this: I think most casual readers of the article will not notice which form you use. In other words, few people will consider this a big deal. If worst comes to worst, why don't you just have a vote to decide which one is most preferable. Oh, and as a reference, see the tsunami entry in Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary. It lists both forms as plural. ~ Wang123 20:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Oh by the way, although foreign words that enter English often acquire English pluralization rules, this is not always the case. Sometimes a word retains its rules from the original language. And since we're talking about Japanese, I'll provide a Japanese example. Take the word "samurai" for instance. This word retains its Japanese form when plural, which is samurai. Refer to the samurai entry in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. ~ Wang123 20:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)