Because “Taliban” is the plural form. A plural form of “talib”. “Taliban” means “a bunch of talibs”, duh. John Walker Lindh, regardless of his political/religious convictions, cannot be many people at the same time. He’s a talib, okay. But not a taliban no matter what.
I mean, how hard is it to grasp that in other languages the rules of making plurals might actually vary? Quoth [Dex’s SDreport**: “The top was … covered by a slab … and decorated with two cherubim with outstretched wings.” “Cherubim” is plural, even though it does not end with an “s”. It’s just not an English word.
I thought it’s just ignorant Russians who don’t know English plural from singular (“I gave him one bucks” - howz that?)…
And why is it so hard to accept the fact that when one language borrows a word from another language, that language very well might decide to change the word in its own way?
2adam yax: there might be more that one US citizen indeed; but my rant was provoked by numerous references to JWL as one, both elsewhere and here on SDMB.
2Monty: 'cause this practice often produces linguistic monsters that make people with knowledge of both tongues shudder. Also, there’s this whole “fighting ignorance” thing…
Then why aren’t you fighting it in one particular corner? {hint, hint} The gripe you’re presenting here is essentially griping that English has a different definition of “gift” than German does. It doesn’t matter how the word’s parsed in the original language, it matters to those who are speaking the other language how that other language parses the word.
For that matter, why aren’t you demanding that English conjugate every word borrowed from Latin in the way Latin does?
When words are borrowed, might as well borrow the basic form (singular and subjective case if noun, infinitive if verb etc.) and apply English rules from there. Taking a plural and treating it as a singular makes baby Cecil cry.
The theory I’ve heard, and which seems to be reasonably accurate, is that English uses the native plural of directly borrowed words, as long as they don’t take us east of Venice. Therefore, libretti, kimonos (though occasionally one will use the correct plural “geisha”). And, apparently, Taliban / cherubims.
While I agree with the general sentiment, it seems to me that the way “Taliban” is used in connection with Lindh is inconsistent with the way the word has previously been used in English. When we refer to the (Afghani) Taliban it’s clearly a collective noun, used to name the political party who ruled Afghanistan. Calling Lindh “the American Taliban” is contrary to what is (or at least was until a few months ago) accepted English usage
Words in Japanese are pluralized by indicating the number of the item concerned. Or just by adding tachi to the end. Japan’s kind of famous for not being too concerned about indicating if you’re talking about one or a number of things.
It all makes sense. JWL the American Taliban. George W. Bush the American Republicans or Monty the Californian Dopers. Same way it should be octopuses or mouses or deers or . . .
Sure
