[question/poll] a rose by any other name...

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

The Japanese are a strange bunch. You see, they don't have capital letters. At all. They have squiggly things and different alphabets and little symbols that can mean whole words. But, dudes, really, no capital letters. When we romanize Japanese into English, we impose our rules on their non-capital-letter-system. We capitalize the first letter of sentences and proper names, because we're English-speakers and that's what we do.

Fine.

TenTen. Just -- no. What?

You wouldn't throw a capital letter in the middle of Neji for the hell of it. Do you realize how absolutely hilarious NeJi would look if you wrote it like that? How about KaKashi? KiShiMoto? And why would you capitalize in the middle of a proper name? Maybe I would buy it if her name were written in kanji with the symbol for "heaven" represented twice, but that's a moot point. Her name isn't written in kanji, it's in katakana. Four cute symbols all in a row.

Many have argued that it's a personal preference because there is no official English spelling. And anyway, like I said before, the Japanese have no capital letters, so we can really put them anywhere we want. But here's my question. Why? Habit? Looks prettier? (I don't see it, but some people might.) I guess I'm just wondering why people prefer the TenTen spelling.

Enlighten me.




[Poll #649009]

Comments

[epicureal.livejournal.com]

I personally don't tend to capitalize in the middle (occasionally, maybe) but since dear Tenten wasn't provided with a surname, lots of people think maybe she's called Ten Ten. And since it's unconfirmed, its easier to whack the two together and cover both bases. Ionno, TenTen kinda looks cool and POW-ish.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Of course, to each his or her own, but I just feel the capitalization in the middle is sort of silly. If you're going to write TenTen, might as well write ShikaMaru and ChouJi and whanot.

But that's just me. XD

[lopt.livejournal.com]

Tenten just looks bizarre to me. By habit, and that alone, I write it TenTen, no real other reason. This might not be answering your question at all, but hey, its why I do it. Maybe I just just be a rebel and write Ten^2 or 100 or something. Eheheh... xP

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

No, that was really my question. Thanks for answering. XD

[superheroine]

Courtesy YTV.com and my awesome paintshop skills:



Personally, I think "TenTen" is ridiculous and stupid, because... like you said, it's like NarUto or NeJi or whatever.

Then again, I'm not going to argue "Guy/Gai", because Gai technically is the Japanese spelling of Guy - I don't see why people insist on using Gai over Guy, but not with other English-Gone-Japanese names, like Ri– becoming Lee.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

I'm not arguing the correctness -- both are technically correct -- and the translation people are free to throw capital letters wherever they want. (Though there's more than one thing wrong in that profile right there -- WTF.) I'm just wondering why people use TenTen, when they don't, for instance, use capital letters anywhere else.

It's sort of a silly thing to wonder/rant/ask about, but whatever. What else do I have to do? XDDD

[sailorzelda.livejournal.com]

Oh my goodness, this post amuses me... XD

Yeah. I always use Tenten, and I never really understood why people capitolize the second T. Maybe it's just a thing people who can read Japanese have in common... I barely ever use capitols when I use romanji. ^_^ Except for names...

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

I do live to amuse. XD

So, as someone who reads Japanese (er, a lot better than I do, probably, which isn't hard) and English, would you say that the Tenten spelling makes more sense? Or it really doesn't matter?

[blooming-cosmo.livejournal.com]

I always write it Tenten. I'm not all to sure why people want to write it as TenTen because it's just odd to stick a capital letter in the middle of a name/word. That and I never remember to add capital to it when I'm writing anything about her. =/

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

I've heard the argument that the double sound begs for a second capital "T"... somehow... I think...

I don't know. I'll stick with Tenten. XD

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I alternate, really. It's whatever my fingers happen to type up that time, whether it's "Tenten" or "TenTen".

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Do you prefer one over the other? Or is it just an "I don't really care" thing?

[icephantom.livejournal.com]

My name is Lulu, but I do see people sometimes spelling it as LuLu. Donno exactly why. Maybe it's an American thing to do.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Which isn't technically wrong, right? But still annoying? Maybe it's the repeating sound thing.

[hey-mayonegg.livejournal.com]

I call her Tenten because that's what makes sense gramatically. Usually, I bastardize her name by calling her "Tenny" or "Ten" - I do this out of love, of course.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Of course, though I would never dream of bastardizing Tenten by making her a rich and drunk high school student, oh no. XDD

[kylara.livejournal.com]

In my old roleplay, we'd OOCly call her "Bunbun" for kicks. Otherwise I use "Tenten".

[istoria.livejournal.com]

You know I'm you Bunbun baby :P

[thisistony.livejournal.com]

I call her Ten-ten to myself, but whenever I write I Tenten. o_O My best friend's name is Pei-wen, so I always want to hyphenate it, even though the convention is Tenten.

[basstendencies.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't think I've ever used her name before, so it's kind of a moot point for me (for the record I agree, Tenten looks best). But from now on if I ever talk about her it's going to be 1010.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

1010 FTW.

(frozen)

[0x.livejournal.com]

who cares? She's an utterly boring space-waste of a character who adds nothing to the show. No story at all, too. blah.



and her hair is stupid.

(frozen)

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Okay!

[148km.livejournal.com]

Well, I always use Tenten... Then again, I never write Tenten. Like...ever. o_O

This could just be one of those things that people do because they think it looks right... For example, a bunch of translations for Chuunin Exam chapters that I saw said "Tenmari."

And we all know there are only three characters in Temari's name, and ン is not one of them. o_o;;

テマリ... Nope, I don't see it... -_-;;

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

I've never seen Tenmari before. Interesting.

One day I'm going to find out how the translators confused "Shikaku", "Inoichi" and "Chouza" for "Shikato", "Inoshi" and "Choumaru", because I can now only use the latter out of habit, even though the former is canonically correct. Grr.

[vash3857.livejournal.com]

I believe that Ten-Ten, (the way I usually spell it, dashed) is origianlly a somewhat chinese name, and Ten-Ten, to me at least, seems a bit chinese too. And the convention is to write Ten-Ten, but yeah, I dont really care, use what you want to use, as long as you like how it looks, feels, tastes, sounds, or smells like.

[sei-kou-ki.livejournal.com]

I use both TenTen and Tenten..er, it depends on how lazy I am.

Aw shit, people hate her? D:

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Dude, there is so much hate for Tenten in this fandom. I think it has something to do with her hair? I dunno. XD

[cindelius.livejournal.com]

I understand and see nothing wrong with the common English spelling of TenTen. It's actually not the same as spelling NeJi or KaKashi, in the eyes of English writers, that is. It's just an odd quirk that has come about in our language that applies in very particular cases.

When a name consists of the same syllable repeated twice, many English parents prefer to spell their child's name with a capital letter in the middle so that each syllable is treated equally and the name itself physically appears to be better balanced. For pronunciation, some would be more inclined to say "tent-en" vs. "ten-ten" based on the placement of the capital (stress and focus often goes to the capital), just as some people pronounce CeCe ("see-see") as "sess-y" or "see-s" when it is spelled Cece. It's not something that is necessarily correct or incorrect, but it exists for these repeated-syllable names. Sure, some may look better to us than others, but that's a personal thing. The following are some examples where the name can be spelled/given either way:

Jojo ~ JoJo
Mimi ~ MiMi
Loulou ~ LouLou
Rayray ~ RayRay
Timtim ~ TimTim
Cece ~ CeCe
Leelee ~ LeeLee

Meh, I'm not an expert on this, but I can sort of see the logic behind it.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

Excellently argued.

The "TenTen" spelling, to me, is just grammatically odd. We just don't use capital letters in the middle of the words -- even for stress -- in this language.

[tentenchan.livejournal.com]

You are so weird~ <3

I have always spelt it Tenten...and never really got why people wrote TenTen. Of course, when I was joking around once with my siblings and they asked for my autograph when I was dressed up as Tenten, I put 1010 since I am that lazy.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

THE SPELLING OF TENTEN IS SERIOUS BIZNESS.

Anyway.

You love me. ♥

[nasouiishimata.livejournal.com]

I use 1010.

I write her name both ways, Tenten and TenTen, just because. I think it must be because when I first translated her named I recongized/imagined it as a Chinese name and spelled it in romanji as Ten-Ten.

[coyul.livejournal.com]

I do believe the first time I saw her name, it was spelled "Ten Ten" with a space and capitolized. So, ever since, it's been an automatic thing to spell it like that.

[splintered-soul.livejournal.com]

I don't really know now that I think about it. I think I've spelled everyway under the sun, I just happen to use the one that everyone is using.

I think more often than not I use Tenten. Not just because it takes me an extra too muscles to hit that capitilization button but Tenten always sounded Chinese to me and in my "Chinese for people who don't know shit about the language" book whenever they write someting like Meimei or Jiejie in pinying they don't capitalize the middle letter. But I probably have done it where I do capitalize so I don't think it matters.

[bride-of-lister.livejournal.com]

This thread has lead me to realise i've never witten Ten Ten before...

So thats how i do it, I'm always a bit capital crazy ^_^o

[origami-paper.livejournal.com]

I use XX... but that means 20... D: `Then, I'll use X-X

Roman numberals rock. ^___^

But Ilana, you silly girl, we all know Tenten's her cover name. Her real name is Jane.

[angels-requiem.livejournal.com]

You know I used to sign all of my HS posts XX. Only one X from being XXX -- Tenten would have approved.

[seki-yumizu.livejournal.com]

Not much to say... but technically if you follow a rule that goes KaKaShi or ShiKaMaRu or SaSuKe, tenten would be TeNTeN XD Capital for each character written
Talk about funkeh spelling

ROFLROFL

[melancholy-mel.livejournal.com]

10-10-321

[fairyparatsuki.livejournal.com]

I say they write it in katakana, have it done and over with, and have the english speakers learn to read it (i.e.: "This is how it looks, this is how it's read, this is how it's written". There, confusion solved. *pouts* Of course then they'd have to go into the whole "The differences between hiragana, katakana, romanji, and kanji," and then that would spark an uproar...especially via keyboard.