re: #155 Racer X

What is a “manyak”?

Wait. Don’t answer.

I would guess that chouch is an ESL speaker and “manyak” is how “maniac” is spelled in his native language.

For instance, in Russian it’s маньяк, and manyak would be a perfectly reasonable way to spell it in Latin letters. (Many linguists, and the Library of Congress, would recommend man’jak instead — but as with the choice between Koran and Qur’an, or Hannukah and Chanukah, it’s more about keeping things simple and consistent for librarians and database clerks, and thus neither man’jak nor manyak nor maniak or whatever is truly “more correct.”)

On the other hand, the Russian word manyak, however you want to spell it, normally has more specific implications: it’s most often understood to mean “sex maniac” or “(serial) rapist,” rather than simply “crazy person.” So chouch presumably didn’t have the Russian word in mind.