pm215 wrote:

http://www.umeboshi-yokocho.com/enikki/?p=3 is the explanation I've heard. As you might expect with slang, guessing the exact origin is kind of tricky.

and why it is combined with the hand?
batsuide: divorce

You're misreading it -- that is katakana 'chi': チ not kanji 手 'te' meaning 'hand'. So 'batsuichi' : 'one cross'.

thank you!

since I heard "-de" when they talked I did not look close enough at the writing :-o

Nesetoru wrote:

マス

Just hover over it with your cursor while Rikaichan is on...

How exactly is that a fail?

yudantaiteki wrote:

nest0r wrote:

The rejection of the argument for retaining kanji for comprehension because 'all you have to do' is add spaces, and make other changes reminds me of this quote from Jun Yamada on a similar topic in the '70s: "If pigs had feathers, and wings, and claws, and walked on 2 feet, etc., then there would be no difference between pigs and chickens."

I know this is kind of old, but just to respond to this part, there's already precedent for all-kana, spaces writing -- it shows up in children's books and also in a number of video games that were made in the 8-bit (and early 16-bit) era.  Some of these have quite a bit of text, such as Super Robot Wars 2 and Final Fantasy IV.  So adding spaces to Japanese writing is not something that is totally unknown; they've been doing it since at least the early 80's, if not earlier.

Shows up a lot in newer video games as well. The latest Pokemon games are all-kana with spaces.

Blahah wrote:

マス = manual self gratification

Yeah, just for the sake of curiosity I installed Rikaichan and had a look, but I still don't see how it's a fail.

Just found ナイトヘッド for Night Shade in pokemon. Night Head? There's tons of funny ones in pokemon, I'll most more after I've played it a little more