Don't Stop Coal Now!

[coalcube]

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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Comments

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

OP

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

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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...

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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

Re: Dear Recipient,

[(Anonymous)]

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