igoo^l yapanese English 



magazine solicited articles in English, the editor cor- 

 recting all errors, in brackets. Some of these con- 

 tributions were very funny, especially a criticism of 

 one Sanda of Kobe who "apes foreign dress and man- 

 ners," and who found somewhere "an Omon" of like 

 disposition who knew enough English to say " I think 

 so," after which they were married in foreign dress 

 and style, — conduct regarded by the author as 

 highly absurd. 



Yet it is plain that however eager Japanese stu- 

 dents may be to acquire pure English, the people at 

 large are building up a dialect of their own which 

 mainly dispenses with the definite article and the 

 plural form. This new speech, moreover, recognizes 

 no distinction between r and / — the latter being 

 wanting in Japanese — and the system of accent is 

 peculiarly its own. Nevertheless, in the matter of 

 simplification the result is not comparable to the 

 "pidgin English" of China or the "Chinook jargon" 

 of our own Northwest. 



The Japanese sense of humor is very strong, no Japanese 

 type or class (the Mikado excepted) being exempt ^""""^ 

 from ridicule. According to Uesugi, the foibles of the 

 country aristocracy often supply material for sar- 

 casm, and in this connection he related two stories 

 current about Sendai. It seems that the flounder or 

 sand dab — karei — colored dark brown on the right 

 side, white on the left, is ordinarily served white side 

 up. By tradition in one noble house, however, the 

 custom was reversed, the dark side being always 

 exposed. A certain daimyo having been invited to 

 dine with "the Blacks," afterward waxed eloquent 

 at home about the flounder with which he had been 

 regaled — so much better than those he was accus- 



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