Welcome to the first in a new series designed to help you negotiate the linguistic minefield that is modern Japan. Japanese euphemisms and misused katakana loan words are rife and likely to be thrown in a foreigner’s face with the expectation that he will understand them as they are in “his language”.
A few years of Japanese study however, should be enough to convince you that the Japanese language proper is a lot easier to remember than the vast array of euphemisms and abbreviations that mask the seedier sides of modern Japan.
Today’s Japanese euphemism of the day: the “double-happy” wedding,which marks both the marriage of the doubly happy couple and the imminent arrival of their first baby. Aww, sweet!
This buzz word is being used to market the increasingly common weddings of pregnant women to cornered boyfriends. “Um, excuse us for saying, Of Rice and Zen team,” we can hear you interject as you wag a knowing finger in the air, “but isn’t that what has traditionally been known as a shotgun wedding?”
Well in a way you’re right, but remember what Obi-Wan Kenobi said about everything depending on your point of view? You don’t get to become a Jedi by being wrong about those kinds of things. The simple fact is there isn’t a great deal of gun ownership in Japan and sometimes you just have to localise your metaphors if you want to shift more units. So all of you guys who scoffed aren’t just “glass is half empty” people. You’re “glass is half full of PISS” people. You have no place in the wedding marketing business. The ORAZ team are big fans of optimism and we think they should change the euphemism to “double happy disney dream fantasy wish miracle happy relax time wedding” to really emphasise the positive.
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“Double happy disney dream fantasy wish miracle happy relax time wedding” needs to be trademarked now!
Hells yeah. And I've got more where that came from too.
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