this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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That's correct, you can insult someone accidentally while complimenting them in a similar way. The particles ใฏ (as in wa) and ใ (ga) have different connotations that can simply different things.
So saying ใกใชใผใใใฎ้กใฏใใใ (Mary-san no kao wa kirei, "Mary has a beautiful face") causes an implication that Mary has a beautiful face, (... But nothing else about her is beautiful). Changing the ใฏ for ใ makes the statement come across as intended.
Without going into detail on the whole wa vs ga thing, wa is more like "as for x..." which can imply a "but..." at the end, whether stated or not, which causes this effect.
Inverted "butterface"?
Thanks for the breakdown!