Anyways. My Hero bravely went to a yarn store all by himself and bought a swift, which, after I received a bigger, wooden version from my mom, I returned for a ball winder:
Behold, the Almighty Handy Reeling Machine. There is really very little that I enjoy more than English translations performed by those who have 85% fluency in the language. I once had a balsa wood airplane kit that bragged that it could "be circular three times in the air!" While I'm somewhat bemused at how they arrive at the vocabulary they choose, you have to hand it to these translators for infusing their English with a certain enthusiasm that is missing from the usage of us jaded native speakers. I don't think it would ever occur to me to pair Almighty and Handy as descriptors for the same object. Unless, I suppose, I was describing the accessibility of God?
3 comments:
The almost English is reason in of itself to go to Japan... For instance I went to a drug store to find some way to tame my unruly hair and came away the proud new owner of a Brushing Brush.
You know, for brushing.
The mind reels (sorry, couldn't help myself).
I love the almost-adequate translations! (Except when they appear in instruction manuals...)
I've got a priority scramble -- I'm still three months behind on my e-mail, but find the time to play an internet meme that a friend tagged me for. I invite you to play, too.
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