Sometimes the abbreviations are impossible to figure out -- I kept seeing カンスト on video game related sites and from the context it clearly meant that some number had been maxxed out (i.e. if you do 99,999 damage or whatever the max is, or if you max your score).  But I had to look on hatena to find out that it was an abbreviation of カウンタストップ (counter stop).

トリケラトプス = triceratops = fail.

Why is that "fail"?  It's taken from Latin.

Last edited by yudantaiteki (2009 October 19, 7:37 am)

mezbup wrote:

グランプリ = grand prize. Sounds so much more like gran prix.

and パリ sounds so much more like the French pronunciation than the English, funny about that...

シュール is used a lot in slang (at least net-slang) to mean "strange" or 訳わかんない.

magamo wrote:

a bunch of mathematical butt holes.

Would that be like...Cauchy?

/mathjoke

mypapa12 wrote:

デビルマン for Devil Man. In french: "Débile Man" (translation: Stupid Man!)

That isn't fair: Any portmanteau that ends with 'man' is an automatic naming failure, in any language.

I much prefer the shortened creative ones like セクハラ, パトカー, マスコミ, バイブ to the katakanarized whole phrases like ノンバーバルコミュニケーション. Japanese words aren't meant to be over 10 characters long. Reading words like that is too much like reading the chemicals on the back of a shampoo bottle. And with words that are too faithful to the english I often have to remind myself in conversation to pronounce it the japanese way.

Anyway one of my favourites is the 不動産屋 シティーホーム. classic!

mezbup wrote:

dont forget the computer ウイルス. I was watching TV the other day and actually heard this used. Crackkked up.

Except that "virus" is a Latin word, and that's actually how the Romans pronounced it: "wee-roos". Latin "v" is always pronounced "w" in classical pronunciation.

By the way, one thing that pisses me off is when people humorously suggest the plural of "virus" is "virii". Latin doesn't even have any words where -us becomes -ii in the plural. (People are probably thinking of words like radius -> radii, but look more closely: radi-us, radi-i. Only the -us part changes.) Some people would say I'm being pedantic, but really, if you're going to make etymological/grammatical jokes, you should at least know the first thing about the forms you're using. (I'm not saying you should have to learn Latin to make Latin jokes or anything. The failness of "virii" was extremely obvious to me long before I ever started studying Latin...)

yudantaiteki wrote:

トリケラトプス = triceratops = fail.

Why is that "fail"?  It's taken from Latin.

Nope, actually, it was Greek. (Compare "rhinoceros", a more obviously Greek word -- the "cera" in "triceratops" is the same root as "ceros" in "rhinoceros".) But it is still how the Greeks would have pronounced it.


And now for a genuine fail (much more a fail than many of those mentioned here, in my opinion):

studio = スタジオ, apparently from the belief that it's pronounced study-o.

- Kef

Last edited by furrykef (2009 November 02, 12:29 am)

ハンディー　HANDY CAP

mezbup wrote:

トリケラトプス = triceratops = fail.

Misdirected virulence fail.

yudantaiteki wrote:

Koujien says Latin.  A lot of words were taken from latinized pronunciation of Greek sources.

Merriam-Webster says the word itself came from New Latin, which I wouldn't really conflate with Latin itself. Perhaps that's where the confusion comes from. It's definitely more of a Greek word than a Latin word, though, as all three of its roots -- tri + kerat + ops -- are Greek.

- Kef

I speak Spanish (as a foreign language) and I don't get it.

EDIT: Oh. プター = "puta", i.e., "whore". Got it. It doesn't quite work, though, since I imagine most speakers will devoice the "u", resulting in "herikop'taa".

Last edited by furrykef (2009 November 02, 5:46 pm)

フェラー = fellatio?

彼はいいフェラーですね？ｗｗｗ

日本誤　FTW