Saturday, February 10, 2007

I don't think that word means what you think it means

Time to get out the bar of soap: the world's premier financial daily gets a little rowdier than its editors probably wanted in terms of Japanese expletives.

Japanese pinball
Financial Times

Chikusho! Investors who put money into Fujishoji, a pachinko machinery maker, must have been cursing its miserable debut on Friday...
Now someone please correct me if I am wrong but is not the "C word" pretty much as offensive as one can get in Standard Japanese? To progress (regress?) any further into the wilds of profanity, you really have to have the plumb the depths of the regional dialects.

In my office, I "suggest" that the "C" word not be used. I make our most flagrant and frequent offender, when the mood to swear strikes him, say, "Chiku...shi Tetsuya!" instead.

Then again, one of the great charms of the members of the British upper crust is their ability to shift gears, enunciating a spritely, "Excuse me, but could you please just go f--k off?" when they wish to be left alone.

2 comments:

Malcolm said...

To a tee (Tea) old chap...

Jun Okumura said...

Ah, but does he use the "C----" word?

(Just in case anyone has difficulty counting to more than three, it's five letters...)