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(I cannot think of a good title for this question, sorry!)

I was watching the anime 氷菓 episode 8. At the start of the episode, there was this online chat thingy going on:

enter image description here

Basically, this person with the user name "L" made a few typos (like 取っ手も楽しみ) and he/she corrected them in the messages that follow. Then "名前を入れて下さい" said that "L" does not have to correct the typos and added that "そのままENTERを押せば"

Here is where I got confused.

I think "そのままENTERを押せば" literally translates to "If you just press enter immediately", right? I don't really understand why an unfinished conditional clause is being there on its own, out of nowhere. I have a few guesses for the reason:

  1. "名前を入れて下さい" is telling "L" to just send the message by pressing enter without caring about typos. This would mean that this is an inversion. The actual order would be "そのままENTERを押せば、変換はしなくても構わない".
  2. This is another one of those cases where things are omitted in a sentence, something around the lines of "誰にもわかる" is omitted
  3. "名前を入れて下さい" is telling "L" how to use the IME correctly - just press enter (as opposed to space + enter which will select the next choice and cause a typo).

For context, this is the next part of the conversation:

enter image description here

"L" seems to have made another typo and suddenly understands something (ああ、ほんとですね, It really is so!)

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  • 1
    I think the English translation is incorrect here unless it's just localized for people who don't know about the existence of an IME
    – siikamiika
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 13:57
  • @siikamiika Yeah I think so too. What I am trying to understand is what it really meant.
    – Sweeper
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 13:58

1 Answer 1

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This is likely an inverted sentence, as your suggestion #1.

変換はしなくても構わない、そのままENTERを押せば。

This kind of inversion isn't deemed good grammar outside real-time piece-by-piece conversations like this scene. This typically happens when a speaker is not quick enough to say the phrase in time and adds it as an afterthought, which is very common in daily conversation, I guess.

A more minor possibility is that the writer wanted to continue another clause after it, but taken over by another member before it and lost the opportunity to post their sequel. In this case nobody knows what would exactly succeed.

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  • Would guess #2 and #3 work in this case then?
    – Sweeper
    Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 14:52
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    @Sweeper Maybe, maybe いい is omitted after 押せば with your #2 scenario, but I don't see much necessity to do that. #3 is a very creative guess to me :) if then, I think he should add ほら or something as a follow-up. (btw I don't think the adaptation is optimal. It'd be more realistic that she doesn't know to press SHIFT key or like that IMO) Commented Apr 7, 2017 at 15:02

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