世論 What Japan Thinks

I had one of these “you know you’ve been in Japan too long” moments reading this list, as for three or four of them I had to stop and think if they really were Japanese inventions, 和製英語, wasei eigo, Japanese-style English! How many of these expressions that the Japanese didn’t know were Japanese-English, as reported by goo Ranking, did you have to mentally double-check? The survey was conducted between the 28th and 30th of August 2007.

Ranking results

Q: What expressions were you unaware that they were really Japanes-English?

Rank	日本語	English	Explanation	Score
1	オーダーメイド	Order-made	This should be “custom-made”, although I must admit to having forgotton that!	100
2	スキンシップ	Skin-ship	Personal contact, physical contact within a family or pet relationship	89.9
3	コンセント	Consent	Outlet if you’re American, socket if you’re from the UK. The expression comes from “concentric plug”, apparently	88.9
4	キーホルダー	Key holder	Key ring	85.8
5	パワーハラスメント	Power Harassment	Bullying, in the workplace primarily. I was surprised that this isn’t English!	85.2
6	デコレーションケーキ	Decoration Cake	Fancy cake	83.3
7	ガードマン	Guardman	Security guard	79.9
8	コインランドリー	Coin laundry	Laundromat, according to the survey, but “coin laundry” is also acceptable, is it not?	75.9
9	リフォーム	Reform	Renovation, used when a home or commercial building is remodelled either partially or fully	75.3
10	リベンジ	Revenge	Return match	75.1
11	グレードアップ	Grade up	Upgrade	74.2
12	ナンバーディスプレイ	Number display	Caller ID	71.8
13	スパッツ	Spats	Leggings	71.2
14	フリーサイズ	Free size	One-size-fits-all	70.1
15	マグカップ	Mug cup	Mug	67.1
16	ベビーカー	Baby car	Baby carriage	66.2
17	メールマガジン	Mail magazine	Email newsletter	65.9
18	ノートパソコン	Note pasocon	Laptop. Here “note” is short for “notebook” and “pasocon” comes from “personal computer”	65.4
19	パンティストッキング	Panty stocking	Pantyhose	65.0
20	マニア	Mania	Enthusiasm, rather than implying a serious mental disorder as the English term perhaps does	63.8
21	ワンパターン	One pattern	Manneristic	61.3
22	フライドポテト	Fried potato	French fries. This one seems a bit of a stretch to me, though.	61.1
23	スリーサイズ	Three size	Measurements, vital statistics, bust, waist and hips – that’s another one – Japanese use hip (or ヒップ) to mean bottom	59.7
24	プラスアルファ	Plus alpha	Additional value. I saw on the television that this came from baseball. Someone saw an American scoreboard with an “x” in one box, but he misread it as α, and it stuck.	57.0
25	ペーパーテスト	Paper test	Written examination. A similar expression is “paper driver”, someone who has a license but no car.	56.3
26	リストラ	Restra	Downsizing. The Japanese is an abbreviation of “restructuring”	56.0
27	ファンタジック	Fantasic	Fantastic. Apparently the misspelling comes from video games, and seems to have got stuck in Japanese	53.1
28	ラジカセ	Raji-case	Boom box. The expression comes from “radio-cassette”	52.6
29	テレビゲーム	TV game	Video game	50.7
30	ガソリンスタンド	Gasoline stand	Gas station, petrol station	49.3