I laughed my head off when I read this thread. Anyone who has read my various rants pretentious Japanese language students knows how I feel about people like the orginal poster.
But when I can't even figure out what the hell you are saying, then I get irritated.
I can empathize. I felt irritated and confused when I read her post.
I'm not sure what a bouzo is. She says it means "bald". Maybe it does, but I tried looking it up in several dictionaries and online. Nada. I came up with takobouzu －蛸坊主－ which means man with a shaven/bald head and bouzuatama －坊主頭－ which means shaven head/cropped hair.
However, I don't think even SHE knows what she's talking about--is she mad about fangirls using the wrong word altogether or is she pissed about her assumed misspelling of the romanization?
I'm going with the romanization theory--
"Boozo" is the Jap. word for bald. The fangirls yoinked the phrase and turned it into "bouzo".
Okay--quick lesson in Japanese for those following along. Japanese has several different writing systems:
1.)hiragana （ひらがな）
2.)katakana（カタカナ）
3.)kanji (漢字)
4.)romanji (letters of the western alphabet used to romanize katakana, hiragana, kanji.
The romanji spelling bugs her. She says it's wrong and that the correct spelling should be "boozu". (actually she says "boozo" but that's the wrong word all together)
Sorry sweetie, just because you learned it that way doesn't mean it's the only way. I prefer the use of bouzu to boozu. Why? Because if you break down the hiragana to romanji, you have the roman letters bo-u-zu.
Look:
BOUZU <---this is romanji
ぼうず ぼ＝BO う＝U ず＝ZU <---this is hiragana
Some books and teachers use the "oo" for the "ou" sound. Neither is wrong. In fact, other people use stress symbols over the "long" sounds as well; it depends on the way a person was taught and what they are comfortable with.
As to the word bouzu-- Inuyasha calls Miroku "bouzu" all the time. Miroku is monk. He's hardly bald. Even better, he's a "bad monk", to which I believe the term is misosuribouzu （味噌擂り坊主）, though I could be wrong.
味噌擂り坊主- lesser monk of low rank/a reference of contempt to a monk
I'm never hesitant to pimp out the fact that I'm a Japanese language student. I'm downright proud of it.
Me thinks someone needs to get their nose out of the air and back in the books. Apparently there's some studying to be done before lecturing and criticising others becomes a perogative.
I've studied the language on my own for two years (or so). I'm not fluent, I don't claim to be. Japanese isn't "hard" but it can be confusing as hell. In the time I've spent studying, I've learned that there are MANY, MANY students of the language like our little poster--contemptuous and haughty, quick to point fingers and put people down. Somehow, otakudom has bled over into the the realm of Japanese Language and well, we all know what kind of people otaku are. The best teachers I've had are native speakers in Japan; those who traded learning English for Japanese with me. Not only have I learned a lot about language, but I've learned a lot about the people as well. Still, I have a long way to go...