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Comment by sdrothrock | Hacker News Reader

I don't know about honorifics, but he was using "ore," according to Reddit. If he wrote the letter on the front page of Mt Gox, there are some weird/offputting polite language mistakes, too.

(I can't listen to the recording right now and wouldn't get much out of it even if I could, since I can't hear well enough. :-/)

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For those (like me) who don't know anything about Japanese, referring to yourself as "ore" seems to be inappropriate and likely unintended by Mark.

> Frequently used by men. It can be seen as rude depending on the context. Establishes a sense of masculinity. Emphasizes one's own status when used with peers and with those who are younger or who have less status. Among close friends or family, its use is a sign of familiarity rather than of masculinity or of superiority. It was used by both genders until the late Edo period and still is in some dialects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_pronouns#List_of_Japa...

Yes, he was saying "ore", which is an incredibly rude and amateur mistake. In English, that would be like be entering an important business meeting with a bank and saying, "Yo dude, wassup?"

That isn't how you do it?

Depends on whether I can make sense of the *nix joke on the banker’s t-shirt, or if I can tell how many months of salary his tie is worth.

I thought it depends on how many zeroes you have at the end of your (positive) account balance with the bank.

Are you sure he was saying "ore"? Given the fact that his grammar is otherwise pretty tight, I wouldn't be surprised if he were instead using "ware".

Grammar & honorifics/formality are two separate subjects. I'm not fluent in Japanese by any stretch of the imagination, but I know the basics of grammar while I know basically nothing about formal speech/informal speech.

I usually hear 'ore' from people who learned their Japanese by watching shonen anime. Even outside of a business meeting, in normal conversation, it would be offensive to most people I think.

What does the use of 'ore' imply and what makes it rude? Is it a snobby way of referring to yourself?

I've never heard the word before this thread but I'm inclined to think it's a bit like "lads" in British English.

It's really... boastful. Cocky. Self-important. He's using it in sentences where he could just as easily get away without using any pronoun at all.

The closest thing I could think would be to conduct a business meeting in which you only describe your actions and refer to yourself in the third person, and then only as "Big Mark".

"Big Mark understands your position but thinks you're being a bit rude about all of this. Big Mark thinks we should cooperate more" etc, etc

It's not snobbish, it's cocky/boastful. "I'm hot shit" sort of way.

Why is it that way? I don't know the history, but the short answer is, because that's the way it is used.

It's not offensive, it's just not right for business. Outside of work, men use ore (tough and manly) or boku (boyish and charming) in regular conversation. Some my co-workers even use ore at the office if they're making a joke or something.

What would be the correct pronoun for a business setting? My knowledge of the language is rudimentary at best (several semesters in High School); we only really learned watashi/atashi/boku (and were reprimanded if we used the wrong pronoun for our own gender).

In doubt use watashi, it's hard to go wrong with it. The more formal watakushi is also good but you need the keigo to match, and there is such a thing as excessive politeness, even in Japanese.

Using 俺 (ore) sounds extremely arrogant, it's also a very amateur mistake to make (or maybe it was even deliberate). it's definitely not suitable for a business sense as it either conveys superiority or familiarity.

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