On 10/6/05 2:26 AM, "Ben Bullock"  typed:

> I'm sorry but this discussion is not useful. One of the problems on
> Wikipedia is people adding "mini Japanese lessons", complete with Chinese
> characters, that are of  absolutely no use to 99.9% of readers, to the
> articles. "Ton and buta are both words meaning pig and pork" in the context
> of that article is easily good enough. The context is to explain why one
> shop sells "ton don" and one shop sells "buta don". If you think it is
> helpful to explain that in terms of "kanji readings", first think of the
> reader who has no or little idea what a kanji is - maybe 99% of potential
> readers - then consider the reader who has little or no idea what a kanji
> reading is - maybe 99.9% of potential readers - then consider carefully why
> you are adding the mini Japanese lesson. Better to keep things simple, and
> leave all the junk about kanji readings for people who are interested in it,
> on a page about "kanji readings" or something. The person here who is doing
> people a disservice is the language nerd who insists on filling articles
> about cooking, or "Who wants to be a Millionaire?", for another example,
> with linguistic details.

I think Ben has a point here. If somebody who has read that article finds
himself in a situation where he is trying to say "pork" to a Japanese
person, then he has entered a new stage of learning beyond the Wiki crowd.

Anyway, I knew a Japanese guy who liked nerdy puns who tried to make jokes
about トンネル and ケンネル having something to do with pigs and dogs
sleeping. So he seemed to be treating "ton" and "ken" as words. I'm not
saying they are, just that this Japanese guy (who had a master's degree in
linguistics) treated them as such in that instance.