Answers

Thanks to all who took the little loanwords quiz. Here are the answers.

Shaapen, シャーペン, means mechanical pencil. It is a shortened form of sharp and pencil put together.

Hochikisu, ホチキス, means stapler. It's called that because of a dude named E. H. Hotchkiss. I didn't actually feel like reading that page, so it may be crap.

Hoomu, ホーム, actually means platform, as in a train platform. Yes, apparently the word platform was too long for Japanese people.

Pasokon, パソコン, indeed does mean personal computer. It's just shortened and stuck together.

Baito, バイト, was really unfair to ask, I suppose, since I made it seem like these would be English. It's actually a shortened form of arbeit, meaning work, if my German is right (which I am not going to check). The Japanese use it to mean part-time job. Weird, eh?


This is a pretty much unrelated picture of a box of Christmas doughnuts I bought the other day. The writing is backwards, but if you can read katakana, you can probably make out that it does indeed say kurisumasu doonatsu, クリスマス　ドーナツ, so I'm not lying. Also the picture of doughnuts with santas and reindeers all over the place is kind of a giveaway.

The Japanese conception of Christmas is excellent. This is a country with something like <1% of the population identifying as Christian, but Christmas stuff is popping up all over. All my students know who Santa-san is and seem to look forward to this holiday for the sole purpose of getting stuff. I don't blame them.

The Japanese conception of doughnuts is awful. They are tiny and dry and, like everything here, individually wrapped for no reason. I think the guys who run food companies here are the people that they based Captain Planet's villains on because it is as if they are going out of their way to hurt the environment for no other reason whatsoever.