March 15, 2007
Quite
I tend to overuse the word “quite”, which is probably apparent from this blog, but I’m not going to check to be sure because then I’ll just be embarrassed. And so I’ve just gone through my entire story and removed most instances of the dreaded Q word. It really is the most ineffectual word one can use. In its ability to either intensify or lighten meaning, it comes to mean nothing. It’s not so bad in speech I think, when tone can guide it, but in writing it just obscures the point. Or in my writing, at least.
Not so related, but thinking about this has made me remember the way students use to use “maybe” when we taught English conversation in Japan. “Maybe” preceded anything someone didn’t feel quite (! but I won’t backspace) comfortable saying.
“Why don’t you love your boyfriend Yumiko?”
“May-be [drawn out long] he is not so handsome.”
or
“Are you okay today Tadayuki?”
“Hmmmm. May-be, I am sleepy.”
And most effectively:
“Gosh, it feels cold in here today.”
“May-be there is hole in back of your trousers.”
Other words I overuse: suppose, perhaps, so, bit, sure, fast, etc I am sure.
January 9, 2007
Joy
Joy was our dinner tonight with Natalie Bay at Okonomi House, where we partook in okonomiyaki– a wonderful Nippon treat. Oishi desu! And now home, and since I worked all afternoon, now I get to have a bath and read Human Croquet— which is brilliant. And then tune in to CSI Miami, where somebody gets killed by a bookshelf! How exciting.
December 6, 2006
Mochi
Mmm. One of the benefits of where I live is international delicacies on demand. Yesterday I had a hankering for mochi, which was one of my favourite treats when I lived in Japan. And so I just picked some up on my way home yesterday, and am snacking my way through the toil. I’ve been displaying strange side effects from an overdose of undergrad papers however: I’ve been preoccupied with Petula Clark all the live long day.
