Friday, October 30, 2009

It's A Sure Sign You Spend Too Much Time With Language Dictionaries When...

...you can figure out how puns work in those languages.

For instance, take the word "mashogun," used in several anime and manga as a term for giant demonic leader-minion beings. (By which I mean large, powerful, and ostensibly leadership-oriented dudes who are really just minions of some bigger thing.) Its literal meaning is actually "demonic warrior," more or less, but since it contains the word "shogun" as well as "masho," it is a portmanteau of sorts that not only means warrior ("gun"), but general ("shogun").

Now, this isn't really an example that I can take credit for-it all goes to the Transformers Wiki.

I can, however, take some credit for figuring this one out: "Bakudai" is a word that means enormous. (Like, since it's Japanese, you might be able to hear Japanese guys shouting it in an unedited Japanese version of Godzilla when they see the critter the first time.) "Dai" also means big or huge by itself. Does "baku" mean anything? It sure does-it refers to explosive blasts.

So implicitly, anything that is "bakudai" could also potentially be explosive.

...

Can you tell I'm not particularly in the mood to blog at the moment?

-Signing off.

No comments: