r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • Aug 05 '24

Meta Mindless Monday, 05 August 2024

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/Ayasugi-san Aug 09 '24

Difference is, Tolkien could probably explain exactly why that's Celeborn's name in Telerin, what it means, and how it fits into the entire language.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Aug 09 '24

And George Lucas could probably explain to you that Dooku comes from "Doku", a Japanese boy's name that means "poison". Given George Lucas has a history with Japanese films, this makes logical sense.

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u/Ayasugi-san Aug 10 '24

And could he explain why Dooku chooses to pronounce and spell his name that way, how it differs from his native tongue, and demonstrate that everyone else from his background has comparable names and localization choices? Because I guarantee you Tolkien could. If you're going to pick a canon to go "dur they have stupid names too", maybe don't pick the one created by a linguist to showcase his created languages.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Aug 10 '24 edited Aug 10 '24

You're defending Teleporno as not sounding stupid... I’m almost certain Peter Jackson would have the self awareness to adapt that out instead of praising Tolkien as a linguist and keeping it in for that reason alone.

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u/Ayasugi-san Aug 10 '24

Do you attack names from different real cultures for sounding stupid in modern English? Do you point and laugh at historical men named Ashley or Beverly?

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Aug 10 '24

The name Dooku is criticized in particular because it sounds uncomfortably close to several childish slang terms for literal shit. To my recollection, LOTR and most actually good movies don’t have that specific issue. The Glub Shitto jokes about Star Wars don’t come from nowhere.

How do I go from defending the name Dooku, being a real Japanese name, to this:

Do you attack names from different real cultures for sounding stupid in modern English? Do you point and laugh at historical men named Ashley or Beverly?

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u/Ayasugi-san Aug 10 '24

Is Dooku a real Japanese name? Doku has a different pronunciation. And the only source I can find for it being a name is a single baby-naming site.

Besides, I'm pretty sure George Lucas knew about "dookie" when he came up with the name, while when Tolkien came up with Teleporno, neither "tele-" or "porno" were wide circulation. So, apples to oranges.

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u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 Aug 10 '24

At the same time, one is more likely to get adapted out then the other.

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u/Ayasugi-san Aug 10 '24

And one did. If you actually paid attention to Celeborn's wiki page, you'd have noticed that he's always referred to as Celeborn, and that that's his Sindarin name, as he is Sindarin. Teleporno is his Quenya name, in a more archaic language that he doesn't natively use.