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What’s in a word? A maid by any other name…

Peter Payne by Peter Payne
16 years ago
in Your Friend in Japan

Words carry different meanings to different people. For example, the most common word for steamed white rice in Japanese is gohan, yet I’ve noticed that whenever you’re eating at a Western-style restaurant like Denny’s, it will always be called by its English name, rice (raisu). Another word that the Japanese have imported from English with a slightly altered nuance is “propose,” which refers only to a proposal of marriage, and I’m sure that somewhere, a Japanese woman has gotten the wrong idea when listening to a business proposal from a male colleague. One of my favorite characters from Lucky Star is Patty, a female otaku from America who learned Japanese from anime and manga, resulting in her speaking the language very strangely, to say the least. In her official “image song” there’s a section where she berates her classmates for mixing up the Japanese word kaseifu (what a normal maid who cleans your house is known as) and the English word maid, which carries connotations of a super-kawaii servant who will cheerfully fulfill your every request. “A kaseifu is someone that’s convenient to have around. A maid is someone who can make you feel happy inside forever!” On the surface the two words mean the same thing, and yet they’re totally different.

A maid is a person who can make you feel happy inside, as long as you use the English term.

Tags: mangaotakuUSA

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