Jigoro Kano: May Badass of the Month - May 2009

**Mtripp** · Posted On: 5/13/2009 11:49am

Actually I remember a Famous Monsters of Filmland issue from a whole lotta years ago, that made the point about Godzilla and spelled it both ways.

Bigger tragedy is that the first movie was really a wonderful metaphor about the horror of atomic weapons... that was lost by the time we got to "Godzilla vs The Smog Monster."

**Phrost** · Posted On: 5/13/2009 11:50am

I'm going to beat each and every one of you bickering earnestly about the spelling with a bat covered in kanji.

**DARPAChief** · Posted On: 5/13/2009 1:49pm

Originally Posted by Tom Kagan

The WWW JDic does not define what is and is not english... except to a sinophile.

Evidently neither does Mr. Kagan: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/sinophile

But we aren't in disagreement about the WWWJDIC's status as an English authority. I dropped the name for anyone interested to have an easy way to verify what I said about the Japanese language. I also mentioned Godzilla as an example of archaic romanization which persists due to an early borrowing into English; in those cases, as seems to be the case with Jiu Jitsu, the word is ingrained enough such that depending on the context it may be more appropriate to use the archaic version (e.g. when writing about BJJ, which favours that spelling).

Nevertheless there will be people wondering exactly how to go about saying weird foreign words and for them the revised hepburn is the most English-friendly. I think whether or not there are invididuals interested in that aspect no one is done wrong by knowing more about it.

**Tattoofu** · Posted On: 5/14/2009 2:27pm

Oh, this is a linguistics forum. I mistakenly thought it was about Jigoro Kano and his badassery. My mistake.

**DARPAChief** · Posted On: 5/14/2009 2:33pm

No one is stopping you.

**johnbarnes** · Posted On: 5/15/2009 3:24pm

That's the prewar British spelling of Tokio. Your source wasn't wrong, just old.

The depth of Kano's influence, not just in martial arts but in Japanese educational theory, is one of those subjects worthy of a 1000 page book.

Do people get extra badass points for being really good at something totally not badass? Like Musashi being a brilliant painter, Sanetomo a scientist, or Cyrano being an expert poet and literary critic, or T.E. Lawrence being ... damn, was there anything he wasn't good at? Because if there are "Well-rounded Badass points" that's probably another million you could give Kano.

**Phrost** · Posted On: 5/15/2009 4:21pm

Don't take the joke about the spelling too seriously. For Kimura's sake, half the article revolved around awarding "Badass Points".

**DARPAChief** · Posted On: 5/15/2009 4:21pm

Another million? That's...over nine thousand!

**Tonuzaba** · Posted On: 5/20/2009 2:13am

Great article.

**100xobm** · Posted On: 5/20/2009 8:50pm

Originally Posted by Phrost

Don't take the joke about the spelling too seriously. For Kimura's sake, half the article revolved around awarding "Badass Points".

It reminded me of experience points a little. Which seemed a little ironic. Good article, just kinda wondered if you were going to mention 'mana' somewhere.

Also, to the spelling bee warriors, this is very unbadass. You all lose some BP and all of your mana.

Go Osoto a tiger for Kano's sake.