There are a couple reasons that would make a good question for the main site. Verbs characterized as transitive usually take arguments with を, but 触る usually (or traditionally) takes arguments with に instead. But it would also be interesting to talk about how 触る is changing over time
Anonymous
明鏡国語辞典 lists it as intransitive but says: 近年他動詞としても使う。動作の積極性が増強される趣がある。
@naruto In particular I wonder if it’s common to have different judgments about this, and if it is, if there’s a salient geographic/age/other distribution. Of course, there's no way for us laypeople to find out this sort of thing...
Yeah, 触る is interesting and there should be a question about it if there already isn’t. In particular the difference in volition between 〜を触る and 〜に触る
I wonder if a case like "悲しい知らせ/sad news" can be considered hypallage, insomuch as news itself is incapable of emotions and it's the bearer and/or hearer who are/is or would be sad. (Ugh, latter part of this sentence is unsightly.) It certainly feels less like a rhetorical figure than "brave news/勇敢なアイデア" does. Hypallage we live by, sort of?
「いざ参る」 ←とっさに思いついたのは"Here I come!"でした。"Here I go!"とはどう違うんでしたっけ?
I can sort of understand why they got so defensive (aggressive?) as they did. A critical response is hard enough to take and they received two of them at once. They could have been handled better though. The personal attacks in the comments were as toothless as their answer was ineffectual, so no harm is done, as far as I'm concerned. I hope what bitterness was generated stays within that thread.
@snailplane So for usage the implication is just that it used to take a particle different than を, but more recently it can take either. Maybe a question on what decides transitivity in English and Japanese would be suitable.
冗談じゃないね -- no kidding. no way. 少なくとも -- at least 死んだはずのあんたと -- with you, who must have died 刺し違えるのは -- to stab each other ごめんだよ -- I would never do that.
So.. how do we put them together?
"No way! I don't want to die with you, who's already dead!" とか?
ちょっと違うよね・・
I don't know how to translate it in a natural way. sorry
It's basically saying.. "I don't want to fight with you because, while you'd be okay if you were stabbed by me cos you're already dead, I don't want to be stabbed by you and die."
@Chocolate how come that ごめんだよ you translated did not mean sorry I thought ごめん means sorry so how come you translated differently without stating sorry?
I am confused there
Anonymous
You should learn ごめんだ separately from ごめん. They mean different things
@Chocolate Not 100% sure, but I think the answer is something like this: the basic difference is that を触る requires intent to touch by the agent, while に触る can be used whether there is intent or not. Normally this means that を触る is “stronger” than に触る, but when you negate them it’s actually the opposite. To illustrate, swapping in に触れる, 「私に触れるな!」 still makes sense (“Don’t even brush against me!”/“Don’t even accidentally touch me!”), but 「女性の胸やお尻に触れた」 sounds innocuous enough to be confusing.