Is “British” instead one of the “secret”, hidden, dis-allowed synonyms on the WK hitlist? If so, then it shouldn’t have accepted the user synonym on the item page when I made it! Yes, it could potentially refer to something that is イギリス的 — British-like, but I know with 人 there it is a person. Also, what about the famous mis-quote of Paul Revere’s: “The British are coming! The British are coming!” He meant British people, not furniture, or tea!
… So… is this a bug, or one of those buzzer words?
Anyway, that’s my complaint/inquiry. Oh well. Guess the easy word is going back in the pile for a bit longer. I have lifetime, so it’s not the biggest deal.
EDIT: I meant: Is British on the synonym blacklist, and if so, why did WK accept it as a user-synonym in the first place? (Or, is this a bug? Either way, I believe this is something that should be fixed.)
I think “British” as a name for a person from the UK falls enough outside common usage to not justify it being acceptable. I haven’t ever really heard people saying “I met a British the other day”. “The British” could be okay since it’s commonly used, but it’s the same with French. You can’t really say “He’s a French” like you can with American, Italian, Finn, Russian, etc.
I don’t know about blacklisted words being accepted as user synonyms though, they shouldn’t be, but to my knowledge I’ve never been blocked from adding a synonym because it’s on a blacklist (although you should be).
That’s not my point, @Wantitled ! It’s not about the grammar here, I made it a synonym, WK accepted it as such, and then in the review, it wasn’t accepted!
Of course I don’t speak like that. It’s just faster than writing out “British person”… 'cause I almost never think “Brit” singular. I only ever think of “The Brits” and even then, very rarely.
You would however say “He’s British” or “He’s French.” Both are commonly used as a much quicker thing to say over “He’s a British person” or “He’s a French Person.” Or to get overly formal, “He is a French/British person.”
And you could also say “I met someone British the other day”… rather than “I met a British person the other day”… It does happen. And there’s “He’s an American” versus “He’s American” too.
So… Argh on the semantics. XD
This was really mainly about the user synonym being accepted but then clearly not working.
EDIT: Also thank you. Blacklisted was the word I was looking for in my OP.
Okay my apologies I’ve seen people arguing for incorrect English before so I jumped to conclusions.
I feel like I had a reason for the difference in my head when I was writing that but I have no idea what it is so I’m inclined to agree with you, I don’t know why they don’t accept it then
And I’m sorry I jumped so hard on the “but I know my Grammar!” defense. It felt a bit like an insult to my intelligence, and I lashed out. Even though you’re such a lovely person, and I should have known you didn’t mean it that way (I mean, I didn’t finish reading your post before I slammed back with a post myself! That’s a bit irrational of me… ^^;; ).
If you remember it, I would be curious to know what it was, however. As, improving my knowledge of Grammar is helpful since I write; even if I intend to break the rules, it’s nice to know that I’m breaking them when I choose to break them, so I can also follow them when I want to sound extra literary… ^_^;;;
I think the grammatical difference is that in English you’re subtly switching between adjective and noun versions without noticing.
“American” can behave as both:
“An American” and “An American person” both work.
But “British” is just an adjective, “Brit” (more historically Briton I think?) and “British Person” are both nouns.
So your examples (sorry not sure how to quote these correctly):
Adjective: “I met someone [who was] British the other day”
Adjective too: “I met a British person the other day”
Noun: “He’s an American”
Adjective: “He’s American”
And my example: Noun: “She’s a Brit.”
Going back to what was originally being said, the WaniKani team already knows about this issue. I’m as surprised as any that they haven’t fixed it yet though.
I don’t get the argument about things being the same part of speech. 好き is a noun-adjective and in English “like” is a verb when used in the same manner.
クリスはイギリス人です
クリスはあのイギリス人と一緒にですか？
Chris is British.
Is Chris with those Brits/British people?
Who is going to insist that the first one be “Chris is a British person?” I don’t see why “British” or “Brit”/“Brits” should be on the blocklist.
There has been another thread recently about a user synonym not being accepted in the review.
And yes, if a word is blacklisted, then it won’t be accepted, even if you add it as a user synonym. There is no check before adding a user synonym to see if it’s a blacklisted word.
Personally I think it’s a good ban – if someone internalizes イギリス人 as British it will cause problems for them later on. I think it also helps not to assume there’s always a direct one-to-one relationship between an English word and its Japanese counterpart.
But agree if a user wants to override with a troublesome definition it’s ultimately their decision. It would be good if user synonyms could override shadowbans, or at least trigger a warning, if that’s the case here.
I think users here tend to lose sight of the fact that websites don’t just magically update themselves – fixes/changes needs to be prioritized, planned, potentially budgeted, designed, tested, etc.
Interesting, I just looked this up and you’re right! It seems plural only though?
The word “French” seems to work the same way - and I see that フランス人 also doesn’t have French listed in its meanings.
On the main topic, I agree that this probably shouldn’t be on the block list though!
The idea that any user-added synonyms are blocked is laughable on its face. After all, if a user wants to add “cat” as a synonym to everything, there shouldn’t be anything blocking them. Makes sense to let users take responsibility for learning and not treat them like children.
