Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Japanese are Creative with Language

The Japanese strike me as a very creative people, and I'm often amused by the things they bother to come up with names for. Having your significant other sleep while using your arm as a pillow is known as ude-makura (oo-day mah-koo-rah) or "arm pillow," and the word for "waking up and doing stuff then going back to bed afterwards" is nidone (ni-doh-neh), or "second sleep." This creativity extends into the realm of English, too, for example the beer I had last night called Asahi Strong Off, a name which perfectly reflected the strong taste and lower calorie content. Some businesses with interesting (if odd-sounding) names include Heartful Life (a home renovation company) and a "used fishing tool shop" called Tackle Berry, which shows a picture of Huckleberry Finn pulling in a fish with his fishing rod as its corporate logo. Very weird, but very creative, too.

There's nothing like a Strong Off at the end of a hard day's work.

3 comments:

Blue Shoe said...

Sometime creative, sometimes haphazard.

Peter in Japan said...

Yes. Often you get the heebee jeebies from them, too, like the map company called Mapple, or the fried chicken called Perky Bit. I get gooseflesh sometimes.

theillien said...

Someone should explain that an image of Tackleberry might make more sense: http://felitti.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/tackleberry.jpg