Life In 19x19

Cassandra wrote:

John Fairbairn wrote:This is such a pestilential mistake to get rid of. Ponnuki is a verbal noun based on the verb nuku = capture and has exactly the same verb/noun grammar as atari, hane, nobi and so on.

In a Japanese-German dictionary I found

ポンと抜ける = pon to nukeru

German translation is "Zack! Weg ist es." what may be something like "Bang! It has disappeared." in English.

The "to" and the fact that "pon" is written in katakana indicates that "pon" indicates a sound. Like "bang".

John Fairbairn wrote:This is such a pestilential mistake to get rid of. Ponnuki is a verbal noun based on the verb nuku = capture and has exactly the same verb/noun grammar as atari, hane, nobi and so on. Unless you believe that it is a debased form of the Japanese that has now got a life of its own in English, it does NOT signify the resulting shape and doesn't even necessarily refer to the capture of one stone.

This is interesting. I do not speak Japanese and have written exactly zero books on go. And as someone who writes for a living (albeit in a different context), I appreciate the desire to stay true to a word's original meaning, even if it is borrowed from another language. Here, I think "ponnuki" to refer to the shape itself has become fairly established in English, for better or worse. I know Richard Bozulich and John Power define "ponnuki" that way, and I'm pretty sure Janice Kim also does (although she also throws out the colorful term "death star"). All of these authors emphasize that the shape must result from a capture, though.

But no one is the ultimate authority on such usage, and it doesn't mean it cannot change.

John Fairbairn wrote:For Casssandra, pon to nuku is possible, but go players usually abbreviate. All the usual derived verb forms are used, e.g. 白に上の二子をﾎﾟﾝ抜かせた - he let White take two stones above, kerpow! Better English, of course, would be something like "he let White gobble up the two stones above."

Dear John, thank you very much for your explanations of Japanese language.

My knowledge comes from self-study, trying to grasp the meaning of Kanji per Kanji, using a Kanji dictionary. I have reached an only low level to be able to understand most of the meaning of Go-related text, if this is not too far away from what happens in the diagrams.

I have merely no knowledge of grammar and some declination of verbs leaves my behing very helpless.

Ponnuki is onomatopoeia? That's awesome.

John Fairbairn wrote:that has now got a life of its own in English...

ponnuki: the efficient shape resulting from capturing one enemy stone with four friendly ones
-- Dictionary of Basic Joseki, English translation, 1977.
(Not sure if the glossary of Japanese terms were present in the first translation or added later.)

EdLee wrote:(Not sure if the glossary of Japanese terms were present in the first translation or added later.)

First translation.