Anyway, two days ago, the top 10 winners of the 2010 buzzwords and new words were announced. It's said that, as the channels to deliver information have become more varied, it has become more difficult to select these words. As a matter of fact, some people are wondering about the results. I'm planning on describing the result in my future posts. Last year,「政権交代/seiken-koutai/political power shift or change of administration /government」won first place in the contest. It shows how much people expected the new government last year, although many of them are currently ready to brand it as an incapable group. In my opinion, this power shift was an inevitable step for Japan to become a real democratic country.
Friday, December 3, 2010
The buzzwords and new words of the year contest in Japan
Every year around this time, the top 10 winners of the buzzwords and new words of the year contest are announced. The results are widely reported in the news. People often make it a topic of conversation. Generally, newly coined words and impressive phrases which have had a great influence on society are selected. Some of them describe social phenomena so adequately that they have been popular for many years. 「亭主元気で留守がいい/teishyu-genkide-rusugaii」and 「家庭内離婚/kateinai-rikon 」, for example, have been frequently used since they were selected in 1986. The former was a catch-phrase used in a TV commercial. As far as I remember, middle-aged housewives repeated the phrase there (please see the video below). The phrase means that if husbands are healthy and away from home, it will be the best for their wives. It implies that housewives expect their husbands only to make money for their families. As for the latter, 家庭内/kateinai means inside families or at home, and 離婚/rikon means divorces, so 家庭内離婚 indicates the situation where a marriage couple still live together, but they don't love each other and don't even talk to each other, so the couple have realized they have already divorced mentally.
At the time, many husbands were assertive and came home late every day. Although wives understood that their husbands were forced to work long hours, they realized as well that their husbands often went drinking on the pretext of working. To make matters worse, many husbands didn't try to save time for their families. Under these circumstances, some wives really wanted to divorce. However, great concern about negative impact on their children, difficulty in economic self-reliance and other reasons discouraged these wives from divorcing. Instead, they started trying to enjoy their lives, not expecting their husbands to do things for them. They decided to shut their eyes to the aggravating attitudes of their husbands toward them as long as their husbands made money for their families. The phenomena created the aforementioned phrases.
Anyway, two days ago, the top 10 winners of the 2010 buzzwords and new words were announced. It's said that, as the channels to deliver information have become more varied, it has become more difficult to select these words. As a matter of fact, some people are wondering about the results. I'm planning on describing the result in my future posts. Last year,「政権交代/seiken-koutai/political power shift or change of administration /government」won first place in the contest. It shows how much people expected the new government last year, although many of them are currently ready to brand it as an incapable group. In my opinion, this power shift was an inevitable step for Japan to become a real democratic country.
Anyway, two days ago, the top 10 winners of the 2010 buzzwords and new words were announced. It's said that, as the channels to deliver information have become more varied, it has become more difficult to select these words. As a matter of fact, some people are wondering about the results. I'm planning on describing the result in my future posts. Last year,「政権交代/seiken-koutai/political power shift or change of administration /government」won first place in the contest. It shows how much people expected the new government last year, although many of them are currently ready to brand it as an incapable group. In my opinion, this power shift was an inevitable step for Japan to become a real democratic country.
