Why did the japanese attach the word Go behind stuff such as operations (A-go,ten-go,Fu-go) and tanks such as the Ha-Go?
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Gō (号, sometimes Romanised Goo or Gou), is a counter word that can be added after numbers which can be sort of translated to the English word “number.” It’s used with many things such as train car numbers, hotel room numbers, etc. So operation Ichi-go would be translated as “operation number one”. (It’s sometimes used after train/ship names too, but in that case designates a service).
More generally in Japanese numbers can’t stand alone the way they sometimes do in English, they always need to go with a “counting” word, which is challenging for English speakers learning Japanese (for example, you don’t say “4 pens” you would say “4 sticks of pens,” “5 heads of horses,” “train number 452,”)
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So… All the operations have the numbers are supported by the counter word Gō . Is Go the only counter word or were there more of it?