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<Walkman> Well if it's going to be generic it's just got be "Walkperson".............
(or should that be in the PC thread.....)
(or should it be "TransportPerson" so as not to offend against people unable to walk.........)
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<I have a mongoose. And, oh yes, and I have another one.>
"My mother thinks I'm mad because I like pancakes" - "There's nothing mad about that, I like pancakes too" "Really? Do you want to come up and see my collection??"
[JJ goes off chuckling softly....."
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thanks bridget! yes, there are so many abbreviated words in japanese. wapuro (word processor), pasocom (personal computer), no-to (notebook computer), ruku (rucksack), iemon (yellow monkey - pop group)...
abbreviation is an art form. it even depends on the area. in sendai mcdonalds is "maku" but in other parts of japan it's "makudo" or something.
i remember being amazed that sydneysiders called orange juice "o.j.", and potato cakes "scallops". how do you tell the difference between real scallops and potato cakes?
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karaoke is another abbreviation, but i think this is famous. it apparently means "empty orchestra". the kara is the same as "kara"te -"empty" hand. oke is from o-kesutora. this one has always sounded far fetched to me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Bridget, thank you for that! I too enjoy the foibles of back-and-forth translation (try altavista's babelfish). What follows is slightly off-topic, since it involves Hungarian and not Japanese, but for those who have not yet seen the Budapest interview with Madonna (while she was filming "Evita") as extrapolated by Gary Trudeau in Time magazine, I offer this link (not for the weak of heart): http:// http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archive/1996/dom/960520/essay.html
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just wanted to share some interesting verbs from japanese with you. often a verb is made with a "ru" ending, meaning a kanji with a "ru" sound tacked on the end. the "ru" is the part that changes with tense. in this way, verbs are quite distinctive sounds (unlike english) and so can be created easily. a mainstream one using a foreign word is "saboru". the "sabo" comes from sabotage, and the verb means to wag school or to bludge at work. some newer ones not in dictionaries are "tabaru" to smoke, "copiru" to make a photocopy, and "memoru" to take a memo. to me, that is linguistic wizardry.
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>linguistic wizardry
but this smacks of the wlatsome verbing that goes on in English (to wit, productize) where perfectly serviceable words already exist (i.e., produce).
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>>this smacks of the wlatsome verbing that goes on in English
ha ha ha! you know i don't object to "verbing" in english, as long as it's not done with self importance. there are certainly some people who object to this in japanese too. it's hardly "pure" japanese. i guess the really useless inventions will die, and the wizardric ones will survive (and live to become "pure" in a future time when conservationists object to their being changed to vulgarities)!
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What in the world are 'wag' and 'bludge'. please? And, wlatsome?
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< wag school or to bludge at work>
wag = to absent yourself from school unofficially
bludge = to loaf, to impose on someone, orig. to act as a harlot's bully [Sidney Baker, The drum: Australian character and slang]
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