Yakki burger...

When a nation is so called 'advanced' or 'globalized', I find that there are in their cities American based world wide franchised fast food restaurant or two. One of the most successful company is McDonald's. Although it is a global brand, the company allows countries to have latitude in menu, marketing and management to meet the local optimum. One way to enjoy your travel abroad is to go and try the original McDonald's local menu.

In Japan, there are original menus like Teriyaki Burger, Mega Teriyaki Burger, Bacon Potato Pie. Another menu joined the list recently, Shoga-yaki Burger (pork ginger burger). And I was in McDonald's the other day, and found this poster on the wall. Shocking...

To make the product more familiar to people, they have shortened 'Shoga-yaki Burger' to 'YAKKI'. If the person who was producing this product had some senses in English, he wouldn't have given a food menu such a name. It sound exactly like 'yakky', or similar to 'yucky'. If you just read the Japanese it would sound exactly the same as 'yucky'. On the wrapping paper of the burger YAKKI in Japanese character (ヤッキー) is written all over as the design. Yes, what you are about to eat is all wrapped with 'yucky' around it...

yakky

talkative, noisy

yucky

disgusting, very unpleasant, revolting.

In fact, 'yucky' was one of the first English words that I learnt when I started school in Australia, and my classmate's mother was worried about me saying such word.

The sound of the word means something to me so it would take me an effort to enjoy the pure taste of the food. The word gives influence to what I feel... I wonder if anyone has made a complaint on the naming of this product?

Suffragette - Amelioration

Watched a movie called 'Suffragette', starring Carry Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and Meryl Streep making a cameo appearance. It was about women who stood up to fight for their social rights equal to men, set in England in 1912, when the Suffragette movement was at its height.

The characters are fictional, but the historical backgrounds and incedents, the movement of the suffragettes are faithful to what is recorded in the history. I enjoyed the movie very much, and it was hard to believe that all this happened only a hundred years ago, but was not told in detail until recently.

My first encounter with the word 'suffragette' was in the musical movie 'Mary Poppins'. The mother of the family is a suffragette, and she goes to rallies and demonstrations, all secret to her husband. She sings a number in the movie 'Sister Suffragette'. It is a delightfully cheerful song, and my impression towards the word 'suffragette' remained very neutral.

However, the movie 'Suffragette' changed my impression completely. Women were fighters, soldiers, and they had pride to be a suffragette.

The term 'suffragette' was first made and used in Daily Mail in 1906, when the suffragette movement started to become more intense and active. The etymology of the word mentioned in the OED is as below.

suffragette
etymology
SUFFRAGE (n) + ETTE (suffix)
A female supporter of the cause of women's political enfranchisement, especially one of a violent or a 'militant' type.

What interests me is the suffix -ETTE. It is a diminutive suffix. It also does refer to something feminine, but I suspect that the newspaper made the word 'suffragette' with the diminutive tone in it.
'OK, the ladies are trying hard and fighting for their rights, aren't they? Let us see how well they can do it without the help of us men...'
kind of tone.

In early 20th century widely read literary and scientific periodical 'Anthenaeum', the word is clearly used in a diminutive, negative tone.

1907 Athenaeum 28 Sept 358/2
[Aristophanes] who represented Cleon, as noisy, Euripides as sentimental, Socrates as pedantic, and women as 'suffragettes'

The word may have started with a negative tone, but watching the movie 'Suffragette', it was used not negatively but powerfully, full of pride and vigor.

This seems an opposite process to pejoration that the word had undergone - it started as negative, but gained positive, if not, neutral tone. This process is called 'amelioration'.

Like women who fought to earn their rights, the word that represented them also earned its present status.