"Tiu ludanto bezonas ŝanĝi sian kaŝnomon."
Translation:That player needs to change his nickname.
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Kaŝnomo is an odd word for nickname.
It seems to imply that it's a name that hides or conceals something.
How sinister, pseudonym or fake name seems more correct than nickname which are usually used out of ease or connection.
True. What the hell is a nick?
I just looked it up. "late Middle English: from an eke-name (eke meaning ‘addition’), misinterpreted, by wrong division, as a neke name"
So eke-name (additional name) -> neke name -> nickname
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A curious etymology! So in English, it is a matter of addition, yet in Esperanto, it is a matter of subtraction (hiding)!
I think alias may be the most accurate tranlation. Historically the term implies concealment. But I think today it mostly means a convient handle/name/reference. At least it does in software where I use the term the most.
This one struck me as really funny, not sure why - what has this guy done... 8-o ;-)
Since this section has a lot of tech-related words, should I read kaŝnomo more like a gamertag or as a username?
Well, in general even off of the internet, it's nickname, but username would probably be better than gamertag.
A username is an uzantnomo, ĉu ne? So it seems like the online equivalent of a "nickname" would be more like a gamertag.
I think in the context of this sentence, since it says "player", you would be making a safe assumption.
Not necessarily, my first impression was of the many strange nicknames seen in sports.
Kaŝi comes from "cacher" in French : so this is a "hiding name" litterally. So pseudonym is best assumption. Nickname is : alnomo or kromnomo that is "additional name" or "petolnomo" aka joking name http://vortaro.net/#nomo http://reta-vortaro.de/revo/art/nom.html#nom.al0o * https://fr.wiktionary.org/wiki/petolnomo#eo
I said "her" and it came up wrong. But this sentence could have "her", right, even though it's not specifically feminine?
I would agree. (Some may argue if it's her it should be ludantino - but I would disagree.)
Why would you disagree with that? How can you distinguish between a male player or a female player (regardless of the activity)? Note: I haven't started the 'Sports' section yet.
Because, per the rules of Esperanto, only family-related words are gendered by default. All others could refer to either and you have to specifically make them masculine with the prefix "vir-" or feminine with the sufix "-in".
So a female player would be "ludantino" and a male player would be "virludanto"?
Why bezonas instead of devas here? I though bezonas wash related to the needing of objects. So the sentence with bezonas would be more like, "tiu ludanto bezonas novan kaŝnomon". Where devus is used for actions, like "ŝanĝi"
I can't remember where I heard it, but I was told that "devi" implies a need put upon someone from outside sources, whereas "bezoni" implies a need from within.
for example "Mi bezonas manĝi" implies that my body is telling me I need to eat, where as "Mi devas manĝi" implies that something else is telling me to eat (for example "I have to eat [because it is getting late]").
don't know if that helps, but that's the distinction I have been using.
An interesting — and possibly useful — distinction, but I’ve never heard about it before and I don’t think it’s used by Esperanto speakers in practice.
Or "their". Which is commonly used as a gender neutral/unspecific pronoun.
I think the correspondence between the terms in the two languages is not that clear, but "devas" is closer to "must".
Well I'd say should and must are closer to each other than need and should. Need implies necessity, should implies some kind of obligation. I'm not sure devi is the most direct translation of should, but bezoni doesn't seem right at all for should :-/
I would agree with that. Not the devi vs bezoni part, I don't know anything about that, but the rest of it.
Devi comes from the French verb "devoir" = "must", "have to" So : "Tiu ludanto devas ŝanĝi sian kaŝnomon. " would be " That player "must"/"has to" change his nickname." So "should change" (= would have to change) would be "devus ŝanĝi"
Someone who plays (= a player) is a ludanto. Ludisto would be someone who plays professionally, or at least as a somewhat serious hobby (perhaps a gamer).