🚀 go-pugleaf

markd@csl.sj.nec.com (Mark Dyer) writes:

>In article <SANTOS.92Jul16131924@melon.mickey.ai.kyutech.ac.jp> santos@mickey.ai.kyutech.ac.jp (Rafael &) writes:

>   Mark>Mark Dyer		English: markd@tdd.sj.nec.com
>   Mark>NEC America, Inc.	 $@F|K\8l(J: markd@csl.sj.nec.com
>   Mark>
>   Mark>When I lived in Japan, my friends called me $@5H30?M(J.($@$-$A$,$$$8$s(J)
>   Mark>I'm still not sure if it was a complement or not.

>   Uh, Mark, the word is "compliment" or "complement" ? 

>My spelling skills are terrible, so when someone asks me something like
>this I immediately assume that I goofed, but I looked the word up in a
>dictionary (the American Heritage Dictionary) and, much to my amazement,
>"complement" is the correct spelling. At least on this side of the
>Atlantic. :-)

Hmmm, my dictionary (Random House College Dictionary, 1982) has both:
'complement' is something that completes or makes perfect. 'compliment'
is an expression of praise, commendation, or admiration.

So which do you mean to say: it completes you? or praises you?

>The true story with the $@$-$A$,$$$.$s(J (kichigaijin) nickname is that I
>like word play jokes, and I came up with the word by combining
>"ki chigai" and "gaijin" together as a joke. I would tell my friends that
>I wasn't just a gaijin, I was a kichigaijin. Eventually somebody pointed
>out that "kichi" could be written with the character $@5H(J which means
>"good luck."

When I needed a seal for a bank account I had one made in katakana.
Boy, was it ever ugly! But a friend rescued me and now I have one
with three kanji: Ma Ku Rein (only a guess) meaning something like
"Truth a long time seeking". 

Looks great and always gets a laugh when I use it. Why they even
call the rest of the office over to wonder at it :-)

Dave

--
Dave McLane                                       davidg@aegis.or.jp
You're free to copy/quote/translate this as long as credit is given. 
Nagaokakyoshi, Kyoto Japan Tel: +81-75-951-1168 Fax: +81-75-957-1087