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Renaming "Tulpa" (and other tulpa terminologies)


Lacquer

What's the correct plural?  

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  1. 1. What's the correct plural?

    • tulpas
    • tulpae
    • both (with the same meaning)
    • both (with different meanings)
    • neither


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Both pluralizations are equally wrong, of course. "Tulpa" is ostensibly a Tibetan word, but -s is English pluralization, and -ae is Latin pluralization. The problem is that in Tibetan, it's often unclear whether a word is singular or plural without adding another word on to clarify. So in Tibetan, we'd be saying something like "two tulpa", or "multiple tulpa" or "plural tulpa".

 

You could argue that we've made tulpa into an English word, and thus the English pluralization is correct. But then you could also argue that English does not have any consistent rules of pluralization. Compare "antennae", "sheep", and "octopi".

 

"Octopi" in particular is worth mentioning, because it's wrong -- it's Latin pluralization being applied to a Greek word. Although far less commonly used, the Greek pluralization "octopodes" is more correct.

 

On the other hand, Latin plurals have become almost a second system for English pluralization, and many sources list "octopi" as more correct than "octopodes" based on common usage. Similarly, the Jargon File lists "Unices" as the correct pluralization of "Unix".

 

Also interesting is the case of "fish" which has two correct plural forms: "fish", and "fishes". "Fish" is the correct plural for multiple individuals of the same variety, while "fishes" refers to multiple varieties.

 

I've been using both "tulpas" and "tulpae", thinking that it's like "fish", with two plurals for different uses. I realized yesterday that the only way this would be correct is if you could say "three pony tulpas" and "anthro and anime tulpae", which isn't quite what I had in mind, but maybe it works.

 

What do you think?

"'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'"

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Oh damn. I looked for "tulpa" and "tulpae" appearing in the same title, and searched for "grammar", but I didn't think to search for "pluralization".

 

...And apparently I missed a topic with both words in the title. Though to be fair, that topic is still not coming up in searches.

 

Sorry.

 

It seems I don't have permission to delete the thread.

 

(post merged with previous thread)

"'Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you.'"

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I really, really dislike "tulpae". Unfortunately, most of the invented lexicon found within this site irks me for one reason or another.

 

I think the word "tulpa" can encompass both singular and plural forms very easily, similar to "deer" or "moose". But if that doesn't suffice, "tulpas" seems a perfectly viable plural form of a word that is already an unavoidably anglicized neologism.

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"tulpae" to me is just for people who want to sound smart, like those people that like to overformulate their sentences using unnecessary words to show others what complex individuals they are. But that's just me.

 

I say tulpas.

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I use tulpae simply because I saw it used within the forum hierarchy. I didn't know it was a sort of "in-joke".

 

Regardless, I think I'll use tulpai henceforth.

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One tulpa = tulpa

two tulpa = two tulpa

all the tulpa = all tulpa

 

I used tulpae when I saw others using it here because I literally had no idea. I was just kind of like 'huh'. Then I was put into my place in the irc. i good grl now k? only sai 'tulpa'.

 

I think the most I'd slip now is 'tulpas'.

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