The top 10 words describing the Japan of 2010--part3: 脱小沢/ 食べるラー油/ ～なう

For the past few days, I have been talking about the top 10 winners of the 2010 new words and buzzwords contest which were announced a several days ago. I've already described five of them (Please see the links below).Today, I'll talk about three of one's remaining,

http://japan-through-my-eyes.blogspot.com/2010/12/top-10-words-describing-japan-of-2010.html
http://japan-through-my-eyes.blogspot.com/2010/12/top-10-words-describing-japan-of-2010_05.html

1.脱小沢/datsu Ozawa
As you may know, there was a political power shift in Japan 15 months ago. It was the first full-fledged shift since 1955. Since the event was remarkable, 「政権交代/ the political power shift / the change of power/administration」won first place in the same contest last year. From 1955 to 2009, the Liberal Democratic Party/自由民主党 had taken power. In August last year, the Democratic Party of Japan/民主党 won in a landslide victory, and Mr.Yukio Hatoyama/鳩山由紀夫 was inaugurated as Prime Minster. However, during the Hatoyama administration, it was frequently reported that the administration was controlled by the power-broker, Mr.Ichiro Ozawa/小沢一郎, not by PM Hotoyama. Actually, it has been said for many years that Mr. Ozawa is an influential politician and deserves to be the PM. However, the public is skeptical of him largely because there is always bad news surrounding him, such as receiving illegal contributions.

In June this year, Mr.Hatoyama was forced to step down as PM under great pressure, and then Mr. Naoto Kan/管直人 assumed power. The public expected Mr.Kan to appoint cabinet members who were distant from Mr.Ozawa. Because of that, the current cabinet members aren't influenced as much of Mr. Ozawa.  Whenever the administration is being discussed, the phrase/脱小沢 comes up. 脱/datsu indicates 脱する/get out of etc. So, 脱小沢 means removing Ozawa's influence.

2.食べるラー油
It was very hard to buy for a while because of a production bottleneck due to the surge in popularity. I talked about it a month ago. Please see the link below.

http://japan-through-my-eyes.blogspot.com/2010/11/2010-top-10-hit-products-in-japan.html 

3.～なう/.....now
It comes from the English word "now". It means that "Now, I'm doing......." etc. A high school boy started using it on Twitter, and then it exploded in popularity. The surge in popularity of Twitter made the phrase become very popular. On Twitter, you can always see sentences including ～なう such as:

-New York なう/ Now, I'm in NY.
-京都なう /Now, I'm in Kyoto.
-会議なう /Now, I'm having a meeting.
-勉強しているなう or 勉強なう/Now, I'm studying.

Needless to say, these sentences are grammatically incorrect. Even Japanese people who are unfamiliar with Twitter can't understand them.

There are two phrases left: 「ととのいました/totonoi mashita」and 「無縁社会/muen syakai」. The former is very challenging to explain. The latter is a newly coined phrase by NHK, the public broadcasting service, and requires me to explain the social background. I'm sure that 無縁社会 will be very popular and will continue to be used for many years like 家庭内離婚 (click here) has been often used since it was selected in the contest in 1986. I'll try to explain these two in my future posts.