(no subject)

[unbibium]

Highlights from an article on the decline of manners in urban Japan:

"The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has taken the step of convening a commission of eminent experts known, without a hint of irony, as the Study Group Relating to the Prevention of Behaviour that Causes Discomfort Among Numerous People in Public Places."

The length of the name reminds me of the House of Saud's Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.

"The worst that one can do in daily speech would be Shine bakayaro!, which means little more than “Drop dead, you idiot!” Such is the dearth of salty invective that angry Japanese turn increasingly to a reliable English expression, pronounced the Japanese way: Fakkyuu."

I suspect anime fans worldwide would beg to differ on the first point. But regardless of meaning, it's hard to imagine Japanese words that sound like swearing to the Anglo-Saxon ear, in the same way that it's hard to imagine German words that don't.

Comments

Hmmm...

[lautreamontg.livejournal.com]

The name is probably a lot shorter in Japanese. It would all be in single syllable Chinese readings with no particles and prepositions and some of the characters being translated as two words in English "public places" for one. Five syllables tops.
Japanese does have it's share of salty language, the problem is that it simply doesn't have the impact it does in English, bodily and sexual function never had near the amount of taboo it does in the west. Frex "shit" = "kuso" is much more equivelent to between "dang" and "damn" depending on context and region.
With the ever growing breakdown of the traditional social complexities built into Japanese (they say foreigners often use better honorific and humble forms than young Japanese) the traditional style of showing disrespect in Japanese, mainly by improper usage of social forms and address, no longer have the impact they used to, except among the older population.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

"Advisory Council on Public Disturbance Prevention"? That might be equivalent US English bureaucratese...

It always bugs me a little when excessively-literal translations promote a kind of false exoticism by failing to make the translation sound natural in the target language's idiom.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

America needs a similar commitee.

Finally, something from Japan that doesn't make most of America go 'What the fuck?'

Now I shall go to hell for generalizing