Funny Things About Words - Miyamoto Takahashi and a Good Luck

I watched "CSI: Cyber" yesterday. The episode was about the death of teenage boy and girl and one of the suspects was their Asian classmate named "Miyamoto Takahashi." It sounds very strange to me, because Miyamoto and Takahashi are both typical Japanese last names. I also was surprised that this name had been overlooked. Any Japanese, even a kid, would say this is strange. On the same day, I read "Nihonjin no eigo (i.e., English as it is commonly produced by native-speakers of Japanese under the influence of that native language)" by Mark Petersen, a professor at Meiji University in Japan. In the book, he wrote about his experience about a beer tagline "Yebisu, Legendary Character, Brings You a Good Luck" As an English teacher, he was disappointed when seeing it for the first time, but glad to see it changed to "Yebisu, Legendary Character, Brings You Good Luck" a few years later.  Yes, "a" was deleted.

These reminded of me that I am a Japanese native-speaker, because I still have a strange feeling about "Miyamoto Takahashi," but not about "a good luck."

0 件のコメント:

コメントを投稿

Bumblebee マルハナバチ(丸花蜂)

英語の後に日本語が続きます。 I often mistake horseflies for bees, but I believe this is a bee, maybe a bumblebee!!?? If so, it's my first time to see ...