Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Cliche

This greeting was newly invented by probably government or some public authority twenty years ago around mid 1980s. Till then there was no proper or steady word in finishing their work in an office. I remember Japanese people abruptly started using this salutation. Till then 'Good-by, So long, Excuse me' were the word. Now many people use this phrase just too many times, so I really get tired of it.
I can tell something more interesting. In Japanese language there's no word for 'yes' or 'no'. In Japanese there's only 'agree' and 'disagree', they esponce either agree-I agree with what you said, or 'disagree- I disagree on what you said.'
If I were asked, ' Don't you like this song? I must reply if I don't like the song that 'Agree, I don't like the song. Then if I like the song, I must reply 'Disagree, I like the song. Make sense? Only in negative questions, I must aware the difference.
Besides Japanese people didn't have the word -agree(Hai), they adopted this word from Cantonese Chinese in 1930s. Japanese government? might have learned that cliche from other languages, possibly from Persian.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home