“ only a dead language is immune to evolution “
Yep ( forgive the slang for affirmation)
That’s why laws and lawyers use Latin .
( and to keep the average citizen from understanding their maneuvers)
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What evidence can you provide that Tamiya’s situation is different today?
You are stating, assuming, a cause and effect. Is there documented evidence of this? Is there evidence that the following isn’t true?
We do know major craft chain stores in the United States like Hobby Lobby, JoAnn’s, and Michael’s are not stocking many Tamiya kits because they do not sell enough to warrant their allocation of shelf space or stocking for internet stores.
I didn’t say that. I said their long-term success shows they are not incompetent, and adequate for their jobs, as a minimum. Rather than doing “the best they possibly can”, everything I’ve seen indicates that Tamiya is instead doing “the best at what they want to do.”
Yes, I am aware that 12 to 24 year-olds regularly use fail as a noun.
KL
Don’t forget bureaucrats …
I heard employees of the Swedish Defense Material Administration
make a verb from the noun ‘dialogue’, instead of saying ‘discuss with’
they said ‘dialogueized with’ …
it almost made me puke …
The verb does exist, … in literary contexts where it means telling a story
in the shape and form of a dialogue.
Latin is used in many of the sciences.
But although I hate to see some changes, Damraska is absolutely correct. In addition to speaking six languages, I had to take linguistics to get my degrees in German and Russian,
There are two type of grammar - prescriptive and descriptive. prescriptive grammar is how you’re “supposed” to speak, and descriptive grammar actually describes how people do speak. As long as a word is understood by most people who hear it, even if they don’t consider it a word, it IS a word. A valid one. Maybe not yet accepted into the Scrabble dictionary, but it’s a word*. Irregardless* used tro be one of those words. I cringed when I heard it. Now I accept it.
That’s why I have to chuckle every time I see Gino playing grammar Nazi. If you’re understood, who cares how many commas you’re using. Especially when we get posts from people from so many different coutries.
Language does evolve. Some people unfortunately do not. Believe me, I struggled when za (short for pizza in NYC) became accepted as a Scrabble word, but I sure do use the hell out of it.
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Directors at Daimler Benz and Chrysler have announced an agreement to adopt English as the preferred language for communications, rather than German, which was another possibility.
As part of the negotiations, directors at Chrysler conceded that English spelling has some room for improvement and have accepted a five-year phase-in plan. In the first year, “s” will be used instead of the soft “c”. Also, the hard “c” will be replased with “k”. Not only will this klear up konfusion, but komputers have one less letter.
There will be growing kompany enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replased by “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20 persent shorter.
In the third year, DaimlerKhrysler akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible.
DaimlerKhrysler will enkourage the removal of double letters, whish have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of silent “e”'s in the languag is disgrasful, and they would go.
By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps sush as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” by “v”.
During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be droped from vords kontaining “o”, and similar shanges vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.
After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubls or difikultis, and employes vil find it ezi to kommunikat viz eash ozer.
Ov kors al supliers vil be expekted to us zis for all busines komunikation via DaimlerKhrysler.
Ze drem vil finali kum tru.
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Reminds me of zis:
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Invite has become a noun as well.
If your boss asks you if you received the invite for the Teams meeting, are you going to call him out on it?
" The Oxford English Dictionaries cites examples of invite as a noun from as long ago as the 17th and 18th centuries"
Well, I have learned two things this week. I saw what I thought was a lizard at flat rock lake the other day, and my daughter corrected me and told me it was a skink.
Like I said, some people evolve.
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I have been trying to teach my kids to distinguish between
snails and slugs (the slimy type, not the ones exiting at high
speed from shotguns)
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Clean version since its a family friendly forum…
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After reviewing the report linked by 18bravo, I spent some time looking for a more comprehensive, recent Tamiya financial statement, but have not yet found anything. To answer your question, I would need that information. My assertion that a 27 year old comment from Mr. Tamiya about sales does not provide useful information about sales today holds.
With regard your first question, I made no such assumption. I am curious why Hobby Lobby, especially the online store, carried more Tamiya models in the past than today. I am curious why JoAnn’s and Michael’s do not carry more Tamiya models.
With regards your second question, I did consider that possibility and wonder if that is exactly what happened. All three chains I mentioned regularly offer big discount coupons. Once upon a time, modelers in my area used them regularly to purchase Tamiya kits at very good prices. About three years ago, when I started looking at models again, Hobby Lobby online still had some very good Tamiya kits and still offered those coupons. If I recall correctly, the online shop is currently down to offering one Tamiya kit, the M41. Hobby Lobby online continues to stock Ban Dai and some Airfix products. It seems highly likely that shipping delays in 2021 and 2022 were a factor in reduced Tamiya product availability in the US. How come Hobby Lobby does not stock up to pre-2020 levels of Tamiya kits?
Thank you for clarifying. I agree that the continued existence of Tamiya clearly indicates a significant degree of long term success. I also agree that the steady stream of new kits from Tamiya indicates a current degree of success. We have no way of knowing the production and sales goals of the people at Tamiya. Perhaps they are happy with the status quo. However, I continue to wonder if they could achieve far more success.
My friends and I have been using ‘fail’ that way for a long time. I am going to go out on a limb here and guess you are not a gamer… That was a joke.
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That’s basically what they said in '96. They were seling
$2,000,000 worth of mini cars per month in Japan alone.
If you ask me they haven’t changed much at all. And that is a figure I do remember postng on rec.models.scale.
Wow I’ve never heard that “za” was short for pizza 18 bravo. I’ve lived in NY my entire life. Is it fairly new ? I asked my kids and they said they heard it on a tv show but that’s it.
I was born in the Bronx but left for Hawaii at a very young age. My sister did the opposite - born in Hawaii and ended up in NYC for all of her adult life. Neither of us use it either, but aparently enough do/did. We still use our old Scrabble dictionary occasionally. If a word isn’t in it then we’ll look it up online.
This article does not mention it, but I remember when it came out mention was made of NYC.
Turns out it’s been used far longer than I thought.
As far as Joann’s/Michaels/Hobby Lobby…they buy prebundled low cost assortments from a distribution house. They aren’t buying direct from any one manufacturer. They basically are selecting “retail bundle 1” or “ retail bundle 2” not caring what it is as long as it fits on the allotted shelf space and has a profit margin of X percentage points. There’s not a buyer at corporate selecting actual kits, they are taking a starter bundle sku and stocking it, refilling and subbing sku’s based on the distributors stock on hand. If that distributor can’t get his margins out of Tamiya in this role then he’s not going to do it,why take a loss when the leader rate is in Revell.
Personally I applaud any manufacturer like Tamiya that doesn’t participate in Amazon as a direct retailer store. Amazon is killing mom and pop shops much like Walmart did in the 90’s. With overhead low there’s no way for the brick and mortar stores to go head to head, they rely on their staffs knowledge, variety and service and hopefully appreciative customers that enjoying a store experience and don’t mind spending a few extra dollars. I support small businesses whenever possible (family owned Ace Hardware vs big box for example) even knowing that I’m paying 5-10% more vs doing the drive, helping myself and ringing myself out just isn’t for me.
I’m lucky I have one nice LhS, he stocks Tamiya deep, just so happens his distributor carries them. Plus the customers like that price point so his stock has turn. I want to buy local so buy everything of interest there, along w supplies. But when I want a more expensive kit I have to Mail order but I do from smaller guys once again.
We are a fickle bunch, this is clearly a ‘first world’ problem. I guess it’s fun for debate but the original post in the other forum was nitpicky and whiny to me.
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Ok cool. Speaking of Hawaii, my sister lived there for about 12 years. Sadly, Her husband passed away in June of 2002 and a year or so later her and her two kids came back to LI. She lived in Mililani. We visited her a couple of times- beautiful place!
Thank you for that very interesting description of how large chain stores conduct purchasing. If I may ask a few questions to sate my curiosity, could a company like Tamiya USA contact the purchasing person at one of those chains and attempt to sell him or her such a package? Does the purchasing person buy sewing machines and other big ticket items in the same way?
Many years ago, I remember an acquaintance telling me that Hobby Lobby had acquired the model stock of another store at liquidation. He claimed a recent influx of really good models at Hobby Lobby resulted from that bulk purchase. I have long wondered if that statement was true.
With regards Amazon and Walmart, there was a time I held exactly the same opinion as you describe. When my health declined for a prolonged period, I started purchasing everything through online stores. During the years of disease, that was reinforced. Today, my hobby purchases all go through Scale Hobbyist, Hobbylink, Amazon, and Sprue Brothers, in that order, usually bundled with stuff my sister wants to save on shipping.
I should also mention that prices and gas taxes in California, where I live, are extremely high. Just crossing a bridge costs $7 US. The closest hobby shop to me is about $27 US away.
With regards your final comment, I feel it important that all kinds of model builders communicate their desires and needs to model companies. Those needs will sometimes come into conflict. However, I believe it is possible to discuss such matters in a diplomatic and respectful way, and that there is nothing wrong with trying to understand the inner workings of model companies.