At around 7:38am this morning, there was a widespread blackout in Tokyo. This is all but normal in this city. Stopping all trains, and traffic lights, it was a shock that lasted over an hour. A blackout of this scale has not happened in Japan for 30 years, some 800,000 households were affected.
The blackout seemed to be caused by a boat on one of Tokyo’s many rivers that was carrying a crane. The top of the crane clipped one of the high tension high voltage power transmission lines above the river, and ooops, who turned out the lights..
“The presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts”; “scarcity”
Example: A paucity of information.
Actually I found it in this excerpt in some newspaper on “Americans and Soccer”:
There are various theories why Americans, almost alone in the sporting world, still don’t “get” a game that elsewhere can make or break governments, economies and even people’s lives. The psycho-sociological view is that, accustomed to instant and repeated gratification, Americans are bored by the relative paucity of shots, the long gaps between goals, the “ties”. As one sports commentator put it, they find football “like Swiss cheese: flavourless”.
The geo-political view is that Americans are not just parochial – is there any greater sporting misnomer than “World Series” baseball? – but also imperialist. Losing at something the rest of the world takes so seriously makes them feel insecure.
This article is reproduced from the discontinued, but much loved Mainichi Waiwai column by Ryann Connell. Read more about this at the bottom of this article.
Picture the scene… A woman wearing a floral micro miniskirt and white jacket enters a room with her boyfriend. He gently sits her down on a chair and approaches her from behind. He raises her arms and wraps a blindfold around her. She seems worried as he slides a hand into her underwear. Later, she stands naked, facing a window offering a glorious nighttime skyline view as he approaches her from behind and slowly penetrates, Josei Seven (6/15) says.
“Those ears of rice that bear the most grain (people in high positions) should be the ones that bow lowest”
This is a kotowaza.. Heard it used (sarcastically) today about an 偉そうな guy at work, who is supposedly a head of a division, but in fact often is found boasting to his subordinates about how many airline miles he earned on his 6 last business class work trips to the US, and how he often gets upgraded to first class because of how often he uses business class. In this sense, he should be the last person in the company to be saying anything to subordinates (who rarely get to go anywhere, let alone by business class) about how much of a “VIP of the sky” he is.
A conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
Politicians, and people trying to avoid the main subject commonly use non sequiturs.
Latin: literally ‘it does not follow.’
Example: “Is XYZ constitutional?” and the answer is “Well, polls show that most people favor XYZ. In a recent study, in fact, 87% of respondents support XYZ.”
“do something in an angry state” (not sure about this… some Japanese person, please leave a comment?)
子どもが親に怒って庭で力任せにボールを蹴り続けていました
The kid was angry with his parents, and just kicked the ball for hours in the garden.
This article is reproduced from the discontinued, but much loved Mainichi Waiwai column by Ryann Connell (article below by Masuo Kamiyama). Read more about this at the bottom of this article.
It is a well known fact that “Dutch Wives” — the Japanese term for silicone females used as sex substitutes — sell by the thousands in Japan. Some deluxe models even go for several hundred thousand yen.
What is less known, reports Uramono Japan (June), is that a counterparts of these dolls, equipped with male appendages, are available for women. And the magazine is eager to become the first to break the news about the existence of these toy boys, in an article entitled “Josei-yo dattchi dooru wa watashi wo mitashite kurureru kashira” (I wonder if a female-use Dutch doll can satisfy me).
1. intended for or likely to be understood by only a small number of people with a specialized knowledge or interest : esoteric SAP methodology debates.
1. clever or skillful in using the hands or mind : he was adroit at tax avoidance.
Steve Jobs most adroit move was convincing Mac users that OS X would still be a Mac.
1. render obscure, unclear, or unintelligible : the spelling changes will deform some familiar words and obfuscate their etymological origins.
2. bewilder (someone) : it is more likely to obfuscate people than enlighten them.
– The obfuscation of the plain truth is often justified by asserting that the lie is serving a greater good.
