coaltide | Don't Stop Coal Now!

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2021

Don't Stop Coal Now!

Tonight I'm gonna have myself a real coal time
I feel alive
And the exchange I'll turn it inside out, yeah
I'm floating around in agony
So, (don't stop me now)
(Don't stop me)
'Cause I'm having a coal time, having a coal time~

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For the love of god, "kudos" is itself singular. Stop chopping off the end.

/futilely railing against English forever bastardizing the words it steals from other languages

NC

LOL, I've been forcing myself to resist pointing this out everytime I see it, since it is indeed futile, but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one pulling my hair out every time I see kudos without the -s.

all your kudo are belong to me

Ah yes, domestication of loanwords, a phenomenon unique to English-speakers! Tell me you don't actually know any other languages without telling me you don't actually know any other languages.

+1 lol

? I don't think they were implying that English is unique in doing this. "I hate when people mess up English grammar" doesn't imply that I think grammar mistakes only ever happen in English...

They meant the "English is sooooooooo special and unlike any other language because it's three different languages in a trenchcoat and we've stolen all our words from other languages, tee hee hee, that's why it's so difficult to learn and I'm so glad I didn't have to learn it" when every ESL speaker can tell you that this is how all languages develop and that all languages have loanwords and that English is actually one of the easier languages to learn.

...no, I'm pretty sure that's not what they meant. That's an impressive amount of projection you're using.

NC. Jesus, coalie, get a grip. They neither said nor implied anything close to what you're claiming.

NC -1 It's still a wrong usage in English.

but for how long?

English grammar has 'countable' and 'uncountable' nouns. Countable nouns are ones where you must establish a specific quantity using an article or a cardinal number: "I had an apple for lunch", "I had two cookies for lunch". For uncountable nouns you don't: "I had soup for lunch."

'kudos' is often used uncountably: "I got kudos on that fic today!" treats kudos as uncountable and could mean one or many. However, many English words are used both countably and uncountably, for shades of meaning: "Harrow had learned to cook soup," "Harrow had learned to cook soups", and "Harrow had learned to cook a soup" all convey slightly different shades of meaning.

Because that countable/uncountable distinction partly relies on singular vs. plural, English will often coin a plural/singular difference for words where the general sense doesn't make a distinction. This is especially apparent in Internet speech, where coinages are common and grammar is the primary way of conveying meaning (obvious example: I went on the Internet today/ I went on the Internets today/ I went on an an Internet today conveys info about the speaker's relationship to the Internet today, within additional "I went on an Internets today" overcorrection also conveying meaning.)

In terms of kudos, the coined plural/singular definition to emphasize countability has involved dropping the S from the uncountable form for an emphasized countable singular rather than adding one for a plural, presumably because "kudoses" sounds like crap. And I think that's neat.

NCYRT

All true, and I completely understand why it happens. But it's like someone saying "sheeps" because they're talking about more than one sheep. If enough people start using "sheeps" as the plural, it'll become standard, and that's fine -- that's how languages work. But in the meantime, as long as "sheep" is still standard, "sheeps" is going to sound comical.

Right but that's part of the shades of meaning - when someone says "you haven't left so much as a kudo" part of what creates meaning is the incongruity of using the coined singular. The speaker is bitter about the lack of kudos they have received, and is using 'kudo' to glaze it with a mere soupcon of black-humor-sarcastic-irony for emphasis.

As 'kudo' as singular just becomes the accepted usage, that aspect will fade out and it will just be the countable/uncountable distiction, and different speakers will be in different places on that line, and that's fine.

But either way, flattening all that into "a wrong usage" like coalie above just makes *you* sound comically bad at English.

The speaker is bitter about the lack of kudos they have received, and is using 'kudo' to glaze it with a mere soupcon of black-humor-sarcastic-irony for emphasis.

I think you're giving too much credit to your hypothetical speaker.

They don't have to be doing it consciously though! That's part of the glory of language. They're using the word and grammar that feels like it works for what they want to say, and all the rest of it is automatic.

OP

Actually, no, that is spot-on why I did it.

A ayrt rt Thank you, not-hypothetical speaker, for confirming my hypothesis!

CYRT

Sure, I agree, if "so much as a kudo" is a deliberate nonstandard usage for comic effect, like saying "sheeps" on purpose because it sounds funny. Maybe that was the intention. I kind of doubt it, but there's no way to prove it wasn't.

For my part, I'm going to leave off here and agree to amiably disagree (this is definitely not a hill I care to die on), but man, it'll be something if the big wank we finally get for YT 2021 turns out to be the kudo vs. kudos wank...

It doesn't have to be deliberate - that kind of connotational choice is often as subconscious as body language.

I very much enjoyed reading the linguistics debate, and would 100% leave a kudos AND a comment if it was a fic!

It's true, smart is sexy!

I like kudoses. It's funny

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Don't Stop Coal Now!

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