Bokeh becomes a verb, by Apple

Is it not soooooo exciting to see the birth of a new word?! It certainly was so when I saw a new ad by Apple. The ad is about the depth control of iPhone, and three mothers talk about how the picture of a child is blurred by using the word "bokeh".

Bokeh comes from a Japanese word ぼけ (blurr, hazy), and my ignorance pains me, but the word is fairly universal in the world of photography. The word was introduced and popularized in 1997 in a photography magazine. The Japanese word ぼけ has several meanings, but the photographic technical term bokeh means a kind of artistic haziness / blur, and photographic magazines takes it up as technical topics in their articles. Back then, the term bokeh was used as a noun, which seems to be the usual start of neology ('to achieve great bokeh', 'bokeh produced by ** lens', 'creative application of bokeh' ),.

Now, the noun bokeh has come to a new phase - it has become a verb! And I feel that it will be firmly and casually accepted in our vocabulary, owing to the power of Apple. The mothers in the ad talks as below:

mother 1 : Did you bokeh my child?
mother 2 : Um, no, that was totally unintentional...
               Look, I can un-bokeh, see...  Bokeh, un-bokeh.
mother 1 : Wow, what kind of person bokehs a child?
               I would never bokeh your child.


The word is so naturally conjugated as a regular transitive verb, used in interrogative sentence, affixable too.

This verb-ing of the word may already have been done among photograph enthusiasts, but the impact of the ad by the "Apple" certainly will get the word accepted universally.

Oh, and please do read the comments sent to the article  about this verb-ing of Bokeh by Apple. Many photograph lovers write about the word bokeh, how the term was used as a noun first, and it does not mean just a blur but the quality needs to be considered... etc.

Konmari'd - Life changing Magic of Tidying up 02

Tidying up your house brings magic to your life, it has even become religious, owing to Marie Kondo!

In the entry of December 2016, I wrote about the Japanese decluttering consultant and specialist Marie Kondo.

https://barefootphilolo.blogspot.com/2016/12/konmaringlife-changing-magic-of-tidying.html

Her book translated into English and other languages were skyrocket hit and put her into the global spotlight. The organizational guru presently based in the States became even more cultural phenomenon these days owing to her Netflix shows of home makeovers. (And recently she has been accused and attacked on media by bibliophiles who were offended personally when Marie Kondo said the ideal number of books to keep is 30.)

https://konmari.com/

As in the same line with the book, her website and show upgrade "the magic" of KonMari method targeting the  non-Japanese audience - KonMari sits on the floor and solemnly greets the house like a ritual when she is to embark on the client's home makeover, there are pictures of her lovingly touching boxes as to show how she appreciates all the things whether be kept or thrown away, the show narrates that she has been inspired by the philosophy of Shintoism and has applied it to her method. Marie Kondo's lovely Asian looks also adds mysterious Oriental taste that interest Western people.

KonMari method is not just magic, now it is near religion -  and Americans love it.

To show how widespread it is, the word KonMari, or her method has been mentioned in popular comedy drama lines. Emily Gilmore in "Gilmore Girls : A Year in the Life" rummages through the piles of her belongings aiming to declutter her life, tells her daughter if she knows Marie Kondo, the Japanese woman.

"Does this bring joy?"
(Feels the dress near her heart.)
"Nope"
(Chucks it away.)



I have seen new kinds of hashtags on social medias since the last entry.

#KonMaried
#Konmari'd
#Konverts

Past tenses were not so popular before, but now there are people showing off the result of the makeover of their shelf or wardrobe or desk on Instagram hashtagged #KonMaried / #Konmari'd.

I also saw a title of an article "The husband was KonMaried..."  Used in a passive (also in a negative nuance though)! This coined word is making a steady growth!

And #Konverts!
It denotes people who are so influenced and devoted to KonMari method.
Now this is really getting religious.

"Shimijimi drinking, Shimijimily"

演歌 Enka is a Japanese pop ballad. A lot of them sing about love and lost love, looking back at the past in a nostalgic way.

One popular Enka called 舟歌 "Funauta" is translated and sung in English. It sings about a man drinking alone in a lonely bar near a port, fondly remembering the woman he loved in the past.

The translation of the lyric is very literal and not so refined, but I feel it sensitively tells the nostalgic feeling particularly often sung in Japanese Enka. There are three Japanese onomatopoeia words that are converted into English adverbs, and they do a hell of a good job in expressing this Japanese peculiar feel.

しみじみ (shimi jimi)
It means to do something from the heart, sometimes remembering the past with a little pain.

ほろほろ (horo horo)
It is usually used when describing the manner of crying, to sob quietly, shedding little tear.

ぽつぽつ (potsu potsu)
This is usually used when describing the manner of talking, like when usually quiet person talking about his or her past or feeling hesitantly, a bit by bit.

And these Japanese words are used as is with -ly suffix to make them adverbs.

①Shimijimi drinking, shimijimily
②Horo horo drinking, horo horoly
③Potsu potsu drinking, potsu potsuly

The man at the bar ①remembers the past with his lady with a little pain, ②sobbing a little, maybe ③talking to the bar master a little about the memory of his lost love.

If you are a non-Japanese and can grasp the feel of theses Japanese-born adjectives, Japan is no mystery to you any more.

I think these adjectives speak a lot about the feelings characteristic of Japan, and I wish that they, someday, will be new entries in the English dictionaries.

Godly Powers, Divine Possession.

Youngsters are all inherently brilliant at inventing and shaping new words – they contract, change the parts of speech, flip or extend meanings of the words and phrases of the old school. Adults may frown at these new school outcomes, but tough, the new language gradually creeps up to you, spreads and becomes acceptable. Language is organic and evolves that way.

Recently I saw a moment when a word from the new school gained a major acceptance.

A baseball team won the series after 25 years from its last glory. One of the team players hit a game-ending home runner 2 games in a row, which brought the team the victory in 25 years. The manager said in his victory interview,


「いや、本当にね。神がかっているよ。今どきの言葉で言うなら、神ってるよな。」

The translation would be like this;

"Honestly, God was on our side. The youngsters would say 'the game was Godding.'"

神ってる (kamitte-ru) is a fairly new phrase now popular among Japanese teenagers meaning "something or someone is unbelievably lucky that it or one must be possessed and loved by God". I believe this phrase came from clipping and transforming the noun phrase 神がかり (kami-gakari, meaning divine possession, something under Godly powers) into a verb.

Clipping and transforming the original word into a verb, and using it like a present participle, making the phrase lighter and more pop

The teenagers are ingenious linguists, in Japan, and I think also in any other countries.

This phrase was not so much used by adults, but the victory interview of the baseball team had pushed it into the spotlight. The phrase 神ってる (the game was Godding) was in headlines of the sports tabloids the following day.

Also the phrase is tweeted and retweeted, repeated on the Internet, TV shows and radio programmes when telling the news about the victory.

The diffusion is UNSTOPPABLE now.

New words entry into the Oxford English Dictionary

Japanese yahoo site picks up the latest news of the Oxford English Dictionary!
Interesting to get this kind of information in Japanese.

http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20160913-00000032-reut-eurp

The new words mentioned in the news are:

splendiferous
---  Remarkably fine; magnificent, splendid.

yogalates 
--- A fitness routine combining Pilates exercises with the postures and breathing techniques of yoga.

moobs
---  Unusually prominent breasts on a man (likened to those of a woman), typically as a result of excess pectoral fat

The first citation of "moobs" is 2001, so it means taking almost 15 years to get into OED. I wonder how long it generally takes for a newly invented word to be accepted there and what kind of factors is crucial for the entry. Obviously these are the words people often hear and use in a daily life. 

The coining or use of new words or phrases is technically called "neologism." 

The new entry of the words surely reflects one aspect of changing trends in society. Encounter with new words is always exciting, providing us with one way to look at what is happening now.