Word of the Year 2006 (Chiezo version)

By Ken Y-N ( December 17, 2006 at 23:31) · Filed under Polls, Rankings

Another word of the year list for your entertainment, this time as selected by the editors of (or contributors to?) the annual magazine 知恵蔵, chiezou, Store of Wisdom, a publication that covers the theme of current language matters.

Rank	日本語	Meaning	Comment
1	ハンカチ王子	Handkerchief Prince	The star pitcher of the annual high school baseball competition prominently used a handkerchief to dab his sweaty brow
2	イナバウアー	Ina Bauer	Shizuka Arakawa made this skating element famous in Japan in the process of her winning gold at the recent Winter Olympics
3	格差社会	Stratified, disparate, unequal society	Not really sure of which is the best translation, but there has been a recent awareness of the gap between rich and poor in Japan
4	飲酒運転	Drunk driving	A lot of people have been getting boozed up and killing themselves and others with their cars
5	美しい国	Beautiful country	Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s catchphrase
6	信ジラレナ～イ！	I can’t belieeeve it!	Trey Hillman, manager of the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team, made this famous
7	核実験	Nuclear test	Should be rather self-explanatory!
8=	QBK (急にボールがきたので)	But the ball came suddenly…	Refers to the excuse given for an incident in the Japan-Croatia game at the Germany World Cup when Atsushi Yanagisawa missed an absolute sitter and was awarded Muppet of the Match by this blog
8=	こんにちワン・ツー	Hello-one two	Imaging the end vowel sound of the “hello” gliding smoothly into the “one”. Apparently the catch phrase of some B-list celebrity
10=	ちょいワルオヤジ	Slightly dirty old man	Not quite suave enough to be a lothario, not quite dirty enough to be a pervert
10=	欧米か！	Europe and US!	Catchphrase of Taka and Toshi, a manzai comedy double act, it seems