03.25.03
So Fletcher's dad is in town this week which is fun because the guy is sweet and has integrated into our crew in no-time flat. Last night, me Fletch, Fletch's Dad, Rory, Ben and Mihoko all went to yakitori. Suffice it to say by the time we got out of there, we had all had a few drinks, except for Rory who, in usual form, had a lot. Suffice it to say he wasn't feeling optimistic about his odds of biking back to his flat on the other side of town in one piece, so he asked if he could crash on my couch. This morning I wake up and walk out of my room to see the scene in the picture appearing Stage Right. The resulting conversation consisted of:
Rory: That's funny, I don't remember going to sleep on the floor.
Me: That is funny, because I remember my couch being in one piece when I went to sleep .
I swear, there are days when this site just writes itself.
Okay, on with today's Japanese Lesson. As many of you know, ninjas are sweet. What could possibly be cooler than a ninja, you ask? A female ninja, I answer.
It may be a little known fact, but female ninja kick such absurd amounts of ass, that there's even a special word for them in Japanese: kunoichi . Being the ninja fanboy I am, I've known about this for quite a while, BUT I only recently found out where this word comes from and why it describes female ninja. I will dispense this knowledge..... now .
As many of you know, there are three writing systems used in Japanese, hiragana, katakana and kanji. The first two are phonetic systems used to represent sounds, while the third is ideographic and representing ideas and meaning. Appropriately enough, all three of these systems are needed to decipher the concealed meaning of kunoichi (those sneaky ninja!).
It breaks down a little something like this:
Put those together and you get this:
===== ======
...which even beginning Japanese students will notice as the kanji for "woman." Hence, "kunoichi" was a clever, veiled way to say woman, which was of course a clever, veiled way to refer to female ninja without anyone being the wiser.
See? I told you female ninja were sweet! Class dismissed.
03.24.03
I don't have a whole lot to yap about at the moment, what with school being out and all, so I'll regale you with some interesting nuggets o' Japanese language this week. So let's dust off the DFP KaiSho Medium font and get to work!
First off, we've got this: how to say "booger" in Japanese.
This, perhaps predictably at this point, literally means "nose shit." No I don't mean "nose crap" (which would be "hana-unko"), kuso is actually the word for "shit". Look it up, I'm not yanking your proverbial chain on this. Yeah, just go ahead and file that one under "try to use in actual conversation".
I'll be back with a less graphic, but equally interesting, bit o' Japanese tomorrow. Toddles.
